Did you know that Republican Vice Presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin was the runner up in the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant?  Wouldn’t it be interesting to hear what those that competed against her thought of her?  Well the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wondered the same thing and recently interviewed Maryline Blackburn, the former Fairbanks, Alaska native who beat out Sarah Palin (then known as Sarah Heath) for the Miss Alaska title.

Blackburn who now resides in a suburb of Atlanta, GA and is an accomplished singers said of her former opponent that she thought she was “gorgeous” and figured her initially to be the woman to beat.

“She had this look about her, this look in her eyes that tells you she’s calculating, figuring out, ‘how am I going to win this competition?,’” Blackburn recalls. “There was a determination there.”

And that became evident when she tripped you during the evening gown competition?

“No,” Blackburn laughed. “Sarah would never do anything like that. In pageants, there’s pettiness and the little claws come out. But if Sarah was anything like that, she hid it very well.”

So of course they asked what they thought about her qualifications to be vice president.

“That remains to be seen,” Blackburn said. “There’s not a lot of substance there, from the speech I’ve seen and what I’ve heard and read about who she is and what she’s done. I just don’t know.”

Surely you’ll vote for your ex-nemesis, though, right?

“No,” Blackburn said, “I am in the Obama camp.”

Palin who finished first runner up and was voted Miss Congeniality would later write a note to Blackburn on the back of a group photograph: “I do love you,” she wrote. “You’re more admired than even you know. And please keep God Number One. He’s got great things for you, baby. Love, Sarah Heath.”

Click here to read the entire interview