Get to Know Mike Huckabee

Oct. 18, 2007— -- Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was born into a blue-collar family, the son of a firefighter father who on in his days off worked as a mechanic, and a mother who worked as a clerk at a gas company.

Huckabee grew up in Hope, Ark., a town his family has lived in since the early 1800s, the same hometown as Arkansas governor-turned-president Bill Clinton.

"You know, people say all the time, do you really think that some obscure, unknown governor born in Hope, Ark,, has any chance to be president of the United States? Fortunately, that question's already been answered," Huckabee told ABC's Charles Gibson.

Gibson spoke with Huckabee as part of a new ABC News series called "Who Is," which features one interview a week with a presidential candidate from now until December, with the focus on their private lives.

When he was a child, Huckabee's family was like many in the 1950s Deep South, living paycheck to paycheck.

"It was probably not until I was a teenager that I realized how much of a struggle it was just to pay the rent on the little rent house that we lived in, in Hope, Ark."

His parents dreamed of a better life for their son.

"My father had never finished high school, nor his father, nor his, and I was the first male in my entire family lineage to even graduate from high school," Huckabee said. His parents pushed him, as did the rest of the town.

"I was so blessed to have teachers and a community," he said. "Hope was more than a geographic place. It was really a spirit, it was an attitude. And people kind of looked after each other."

In 1973, Huckabee was accepted into Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Ark. Right after his freshman year, an 18-year-old Huckabee married his high school sweetheart, Janet, who also attended OBU.

In college, Huckabee began to explore his diverse interests. He worked during the week as a rock 'n' roll DJ on the radio, then spent the weekends preaching at a Baptist church. Still, he managed to complete his four-year degree program in religion in just two-and-a-half years. He enrolled in Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas before becoming a pastor for 12 years, almost by accident.

"In 1980, a church in Arkansas asked me to come and speak for them, and I did. Then they asked me to come back and speak again, and I did. Then they said, you know we're without a pastor. Why don't you be our interim pastor, which means you, you speak every Sunday until we find somebody to do it permanently. And after about four months, they said, why don't you just stay? And that's how I became a pastor."