It’s not yet known if Mike Pence, the Republican governor of Indiana, will be a contender for the party’s presidential nomination in the 2016 election. Pence is busy keeping his head down and working on his home state’s initiatives until the current legislature adjourns in April. Then, Pence has said he will take a look at the 2016 landscape and decide whether to run for president in 2016.
After college, Pence, a fundamentalist Christian and conservative Republican, developed a passion for politics, initially running for the United States Congress and eventually being elected. If Pence does enter the 2016 presidential race, here are some highlights you should know about his life before he entered the political arena.
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1. Growing up in Columbus, Indiana, Pence is a lifelong Hoosier with deep roots in the state. One of six Irish Catholic children born to parents Edward and Nancy, he graduated from Hanover College in 1981 and stayed at his alma mater, working as an admissions counselor from 1981 to 1983.
2. Pence attended law school and earned his law degree from Indiana University School of Law in 1986. He was in private practice as an attorney from 1986 to 1990.
3. Pence’s favorite subject in school was history and his favorite book is the Holy Bible.
4. Pence and his wife Karen were married in 1985 and they have three children: Michael, Charlotte, and Audrey.
5. In 1991, Pence became president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation in Fort Wayne. The group conducts and circulates research on Indiana issues at the state and municipal levels.
6. In 1993, he began producing a statewide radio show. In 1994, “The Mike Pence Show” was syndicated across the state and later aired on 18 radio stations statewide through September 1999. He also hosted a Sunday morning television show in Indianapolis from 1995 until 1999.
7. The third time was a charm: Pence ran for Congress twice — first in 1988 and then again in 1990 — and defeated twice by the same Democratic opponent before he was finally elected to the House of Representatives in 2000.
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