Few Remember Sarah Palin From Her Idaho Roots, but Many Have Embraced
By: Dan Popkey, The Idaho Statesman, Boise
09/15/2008

Sep. 14--Though few had heard of University of Idaho grad Sarah Palin before John McCain tabbed her as his running mate, Idahoans now eagerly claim her as one of their own.

Jerry Kramer, the Vandal and former NFL great, played football with Palin's dad at Sandpoint High School. In the dizzying 16 days since Palin's emergence, Kramer has become a big fan of the Alaska governor.

"I'm hooked," Kramer said. "How can I not like a Vandal and a girl from Sandpoint?"

Kramer watched Palin's maiden TV interview Thursday with keen interest. "She handled herself well. She seems to have real good common sense. She's a down-to-earth, sensible lady."

Before her nomination, the U of I was negotiating with Palin to appear as the commencement speaker in 2009. In a hand-written note to former U of I President Tim White earlier this year, Palin wrote, "You'd be impressed with the number of Idaho grads in my administration. Thanks for educating so many, so well. GO VANDALS! Sarah."

In fact, Alaska supplies more students to the U of I than all but three other states (Idaho, Washington and Oregon), averaging 280 students since 1997.

Idaho Republicans are thrilled with what Party Chairman Norm Semanko calls "Palin Power." Semanko credits Palin for boosting McCain to a 39-point lead over Barack Obama in a new Idaho poll. "Young, energetic, intelligent, authentic, a Westerner and genuinely conservative, Gov. Palin has injected a new level of excitement up and down the ballot," he said Friday.

Semanko's discovery of Palin mirrors the experience of many Idahoans. Semanko attended the U of I with Palin, but when she was picked, he couldn't place her. Palin graduated with a journalism degree in 1987. She also attended North Idaho College in 1983-84. Neither school has been able to locate faculty or students who remember much beyond her good looks.

Phone calls and e-mails seeking comment from Palin and the McCain-Palin campaign went unanswered last week.

The Statesman reached 30 teachers and students who were at U of I or NIC during Palin's tenure; just four could recall her in any detail. They describe a serious, caring, quiet student who didn't invite men to her single room in Neely Hall and regularly reminded one friend to set her alarm on Sunday for church.

That friend was Stacia Hagerty, a real estate agent and lawyer in Coeur d'Alene. It took her four days after McCain named Palin to recall her. Hagerty's memory was triggered by Palin's maiden name when she saw a newspaper story mentioning Palin's parents, Chuck and Sally Heath.

First and foremost, Hagerty said, Palin was genuine. "You never felt like she was too good for anything. But at the same time, I never saw her drunk or act stupid or skip class or betray a friend. I mean, she's just so rock solid."

One Idahoan who knows Palin and her family well is Boise artist Loralee Gray, a neighbor and friend of Chuck and Sally Heath when their daughter, Sarah, was born Feb. 11, 1964, in Sandpoint.

In March, Gray installed a huge birch wood map of Alaska on the wall behind Palin's desk in her office in Juneau. Now, she sees her work on TV.

That experience exposed her to the official side of Palin. Though Gray was a Barack Obama delegate to the Idaho Democratic convention, she's impressed with Gov. Palin and overjoyed for her and her family.

"I knew her as a great mom, a great sister, a wonderful, caring daughter to her parents," Gray said. "But to see her in her professional role was really amazing. She was very, very capable, very measured. She wasn't making quick decisions, but she was making them."

Gray spent several nights in the governor's mansion in the same bedroom once used by Charles Lindbergh. And she was a fly-on-the-wall in the governor's office for several days as she installed the wall hanging.

"I'm standing on a step-ladder behind her while people are in there from all over the state," Gray recalled. "She'd introduce me; I'd just keep working, and they did their thing. She was no-nonsense, but not in a dictatorial sense at all. A lot of it was thought process out loud, talking it through with her staff. Playing things out, different scenarios. Just the way you'd like to think politics were done."

Sarah Heath left Sandpoint as an infant when her dad, a teacher and coach, sought better pay in Alaska in the fall of 1964. As it turned out, Chuck Heath led an exodus to Wasilla, the town where his daughter later became mayor. Among those who followed was Gray's brother-in-law, Adrian Lane, who played basketball for Heath.

"He's kind of the pied piper," Gray said. "I know more people from Sandpoint in Wasilla now than I know in Sandpoint."

Gray reconnected with the Heaths in the early 1990s, when she administered art projects in native Alaskan villages. She spent a couple years in Alaska and even house-sat for the Heaths. In June, she and her son, David Currie of Boise, joined Chuck and Sally and four others on an English vacation.

Since Palin's nomination, she's had one brief talk with Sally, wondering how it felt to have their "lives turned upside down in a moment." Gray offered her support and a joke: "If you need a place to hide, I'm here."

Kenton Bird, director of the School of Journalism and Mass Media at U of I, said on Aug. 29, the day of Palin's rise, that she left "light footprints" in Moscow. But the U of I immediately touted her on its Web site as an alum. Marty Peterson, special assistant to the president, said Palin appears to have been a typical student.

"She came and studied, completed her course work, graduated and went back home and got a job," Peterson said. "I think she's the rule rather than the exception."

Palin graduated U of I after four semesters on campus. She also attended the University of Hawaii, briefly; Hawaii Pacific University for one semester; spent two semesters at NIC; and one semester at Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska, which interrupted her time in Moscow in fall 1985.

Palin's academic advisor at U of I, Roy Atwood, remembers Palin's face, but little else. But he has reviewed her academic record and followed the news.

Atwood noted that Palin completed two TV internships, one in Coeur d'Alene and one in Alaska. Students were encouraged to land internships, but had to find slots on their own. Atwood estimates that fewer than 25 percent did so.

"She ended up with two, and that's extraordinary," Atwood said. "I think it's an indicator of her go-getter, can-do, no-letting-obstacles-stop-her attitude. She may not have stood out as a brilliant student that people remember well in class, but her record suggests she was a student who went way above and beyond and maintained a sense of drive and initiative that was rare."

Atwood was at U of I for 16 years. He now is president of New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, a classical Christian college. He's seen video of a recent appearance by Palin at her Assembly of God Church in Alaska before she was picked as veep.

"The thing that impressed me as a conservative Christian was the integrity of her Christian testimony," Atwood said. "It was genuine and from the heart. This was her home church. They remember her as a kid. She was not a woman who was playing the evangelical card because it was going to get her votes with the goofball right-wing. It was genuine Christian faith."

And not just Idaho Republicans are proud of Palin. Democrat Walt Minnick, the 1st District Congress candidate, lauded McCain's choice of the "native daughter and alumnus of one of our state's great universities" the day it was announced.

Minnick noted Palin's appeal as an agent of change. "Her reputation as a champion of reform and enemy of corruption sends yet another message that people from both parties are ready for change in Washington, D.C."

But Kramer, who knows something about the glare of the spotlight as one of the greatest offensive lineman in NFL history, said he worries the GOP is heaping Palin with a heavy load.

"I'm just afraid they're putting too much of a burden on her," Kramer said. "She's obviously coming out of the bushes to save McCain and save the Republican Party and save the world. Hold on a minute here, you know?"

Kramer wonders about her lack of sophistication with foreign policy. "It's a long way from Wasilla to the Middle East," he said.

Still, Kramer said, Palin has the essential tools. "You like her character, you like the qualities that she brings. I guess you can learn a lot of that other stuff on the job. But you can't learn integrity, you can't learn decency, you can't learn principles, you can't learn the things that really count. So, fundamentally, I'm behind her."

Dan Popkey: 377-6438

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