HUCKABEE, Mike 1955-

(Michael Dale Huckabee)

PERSONAL: Born August 24, 1955, in Hope, AK. Education: Attended Ouachita Baptist University, 1976; attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Politics: Republican. Religion: Baptist. Hobbies and other interests: Hunting, fishing, playing bass guitar.

ADDRESSES: Office—Governor's Office, State Capitol, Rm. 250, Little Rock, AK 72201.

CAREER: Baptist pastor and politician. Pine Bluff, TX, and Texarkana, AK, Baptist pastor; Baptist State Convention, president, 1989–91; State of Arkansas, lieutenant governor, 1993–96, governor, 1996–.

AWARDS, HONORS: Named American Sportsfishing Association Man of the Year, 1997; inducted into Arkansas Outdoor Hall of Fame, 2000.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(With John Perry) Character Is the Issue: How People with Integrity Can Revolutionize America, Broadman & Holman Publishers (Nashville, TN), 1997.

(With George Grant) Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence, Broadman & Holman Publishers (Nashville, TN), 1998.

Living beyond Your Lifetime: How to Be Intentional about the Legacy You Leave, Broadman & Holman Publishers (Nashville, TN), 2000.

Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork: A Twelve-Step Program to End Bad Habits and Begin a Healthy Lifestyle, Center Street (New York, NY), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Mike Huckabee is a Baptist pastor and the governor of Arkansas, who also finds time to write. His books have dealt with topics from personal integrity to teen violence and healthy living, all of which are told with a clergyman's emphasis on positive thinking and a conservative's emphasis on individual responsibility. His 1998 book, Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence, written with Dr. George Grant, uses a school shooting in Arkansas to open an investigation about teen violence, its causes, and what can be done about it. Huckabee proposes private rather than public cures for this condition. As Jay Graham noted in an online review for ACloserLook.com, "Huckabee is surprisingly positive as he admonishes us to start with ourselves and step out to support America's basic values of faith, family, work, and community."

Huckabee turns from teen violence to weight control with his 2005 title, Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork: A Twelve-Step Program to End Bad Habits and Begin a Healthy Lifestyle. Reviewing that book in the Baxter Bulletin Online, Frank Wallis wrote that, "on weight loss, in a nutshell, it's all old information: Stop eating so much of the wrong foods so often and exercise often way more than you want to." Huckabee offers advice such as admonitions to stop putting off the diet to end the complaints and simply get to work, and not to expect immediate success. Huckabee put his own weight-loss program to work and lost 110 pounds; in 2005 he ran the Little Rock, Arkansas Marathon, a distance of 26.2 miles.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

ONLINE

ACloserLook.com, http://www.acloserlook.com/ (May 28, 2005), Jay Graham, review of Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence.

Baxter Bulletin Online, http://cityguide.ozarksgateway.com/ (May 5, 2005), Frank Wallis, "Huckabee Touts Fight against Fat," review of Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork: A Twelve-Step Program to End Bad Habits and Begin a Healthy Lifestyle.