Editor's Note: This profile was originally printed April 3, 2005 in the Your Life section of the Sunday Grand Rapids Press. We offer it again here on Mlive.com due to Terri Lynn Land's recent announcement that she is considering a run for governor.

"So," Terri Lynn Land begins after being introduced to the advanced placement government class at Hudsonville High School. "Does anybody know what the secretary of state does? I'm curious to find out what other people think I do."

A few hands go up, a couple comments circulate, and one male voice near the back of the room says, "Ummm ... you answer calls for the state?"

Nope, Secretary of State Land doesn't spend her days at a switchboard, but she has answered the call. It came from the Republican Party, and she picked it up nearly 30 years ago, when she was a teenager.

Now, at 46, she's the top Republican in the state. Only two elected officials outrank her: Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Lt. Gov. John Cherry, both Democrats.

"I'm a little odd," she confesses to the Hudsonville teens. "I knew I wanted to do this since I was 16."

"Odd" understates the pull politics has had on Land. She began going to city council meetings in 1975, when she was a senior at Grandville High. "I figured this was affecting me, so I'd better be interested," she told The Press at the time.

She attended the Republican National Convention in Kansas City in 1976, even shook President Gerald R. Ford's hand. She was 18, "and from there I was hooked," she says.

'One-woman PAC'

In the ensuing years, Land has run for office a half-dozen times, attended hundreds of Lincoln Day dinners and other fund-raisers and raised millions of dollars for the Republican Party. She spent eight years as Kent County clerk, 27 months, so far, as secretary of state and vows to be involved in politics until the day she dies.

"She is absolutely a damn-the-torpedoes, full-speed-ahead, one-woman political action committee, and I think she always will be," says Bill Ballenger, editor of Inside Michigan Politics.

BIO BOX

Four things to know about Terri Lynn Land:

• Late last year, after John Kerry captured Michigan's electoral votes, Land speculated that Betsy DeVos wouldn't run for another term as state Republican Party chairwoman. DeVos' top aide, Greg McNeilly, sniped that Land doesn't speak for DeVos. "Her large hair gets in the way of her accurate hearing," he said. Shortly thereafter, Land showed up at the annual Coffee Dunkers of America breakfast wearing a Marge Simpson-ish blue wig. "I've never been negative. When somebody's digging a hole, I just get out of the way," she said later. And yes, DeVos stepped down.

• Land grows daffodils, enjoys jigsaw puzzles and, at 46, boasts she still can slalom on water skis.

• She is critical of Jennifer Granholm's reluctance to "move beyond the budget and start talking about other things," but she doesn't throw lots of darts at the governor, at least not publicly. "She always calls when she vetoes one of my bills," Land says. "It's nice to be called."

• "I love TV," Land says. One of her favorite shows is the left-leaning "The West Wing." She also tries to catch "Everybody Loves Raymond" and PBS' "The Red Green Show."

Land is mulling a run for the U.S. Senate next year, eyeing the seat held by Democrat Debbie Stabenow, who Republicans see as vulnerable. Or maybe she'll stay put and run for the U.S. House, or governor, in 2010.

"I have to do what's best for the party. On behalf of the party, I do need to take a look at that Senate seat," she says. "But I'm also interested in who would take this job. It would be important to find a successor."

She'll do whatever's right for the right, just like always.

In the beginning

The oldest of four daughters born to Paul and Judy Land, Terri Land grew up in Grandville. Her dad created the successful property management and real estate business, Land & Co. Her mother taught her to garden and insisted she and her sisters go to college.

As a teen, Terri Land cleaned Lands Inn rooms with her grandmother and later worked in the office and managed the family-owned motel in Grandville. Today, her husband, Dan Hibma, is administrator of Land & Co. Her father, 71, remains involved.

Paul Land never was a politician, "but if you talk to him, you'd think he was," his daughter says. He still has coffee most days at the Rainbow Grill in Grandville, where politics and community news always are on his menu.

When Paul Land was offered a seat on the Grandville Planning Commission in 1980, he suggested his oldest daughter, then 22, take the job. She was happy to oblige. Three years later, she was forced to give up the seat because she moved to Byron Township after marrying Hibma, who was Byron Township supervisor.

The couple were introduced at an executive committee meeting of the Kent County Republicans. Land was running for state representative against aging Democrat Jelt Sietsema, who had owned the seat for 14 years. Hibma, who hadn't worked on any campaign other than his own, volunteered to help Land.

"I thought she was good lookin' What else would a guy think?" Hibma remembers.

She lost the race. "I ran for state representative at 23 because, at 23, you think you can be a state rep. But no matter what I did, I was still 23, and he was still 63," she says.

She and Hibma married in 1983 and had two children. Jessica was born in 1986. Nic came along two and a half years later. Politics took a back seat, but Land didn't give it up. In 1988, she was named chairwoman of the Kent County GOP, succeeding Republican Betsy DeVos. Her ascent in the party was just beginning.

Try, try again

In the fall of 1992 when she was campaigning door-to-door as a candidate for Kent County clerk, she walked up to a homeowner who was raking leaves in his front yard. She noticed the man had stopped his work and watched as she approached.

"I've been waiting for you," he said. "Where have you been since you ran for state rep?

"I've been waiting for you to run again."

His comments inspired her, she said. She won the post, which paid her about $70,000 a year.

"It was a great job with the kids, because county government closes at 5," she says. "I was 15 minutes from home with no night meetings and no weekends."

But it wasn't without controversy. Two years in, she battled with Kent County judges over access to court files. Chief Circuit Judge Dennis Kolenda complained her filing rules were too restrictive and disruptive.

"When I got there, they used to have piles of papers on the floors. I said 'no.' They were going to go in the files," Land says.

She's sure she was right, she says, because her policies are still in place today. Land says she and Judge Kolenda are "fine now." Kolenda declined to be interviewed for this story.

"She has a direct approach," says Mary Hollinrake, who was Land's deputy clerk, her successor and an enthusiastic supporter. "You are always clear about the direction Terri wants to go."

Higher aspirations

In 2000 -- she had pledged to serve two terms as county clerk and was nearing the end of the second term -- Gov. John Engler asked her to run for the state Board of Education.

Engler also convinced her to campaign using her full name -- Terri Lynn Land -- instead of Terri L. Land.

"He felt it was important for people to know that I was a female, to have that diversity," she says. "So we put that on the ballot."

She didn't win, "but after 1.6 million people voted for Terri Lynn Land, it wasn't a good idea to change back."

Nearly two years later, in her bid for secretary of state, she found herself in the role of underdog. State Sen. Loren Bennett, from heavily populated Wayne County, also wanted the job and appeared likely to get the nod from Republicans, who were slated to pick the nominee in a late-August convention. Still, Land decided to push ahead.

Less than a week before the convention, gubernatorial candidate Dick Posthumus asked Bennett to be his running mate. Bennett agreed, clearing the way for Land.

"This was a good lesson. If you want something, do your best and stay to the end because you never know what is going to happen," she says.

In November, 2002, she received 1.7 million votes -- more even than Granholm -- and became Michigan's 41st secretary of state.

She is who she is

Land is no shrinking violet. She's decisive and persuasive. She moves quickly and talks in rapid-fire sentences. Self-promotion comes with ease. But you can't accuse her of being too self-promotional.

Predecessor, Candice Miller, stamped her name across all branch office signs. Land didn't.

"In the time of term limits, it just doesn't make sense anymore because, in eight years, you will have a new secretary of state," Land says.

She replaced Miller's name with the Web site address: www.Michigan.gov/sos.

Land raised a few eyebrows when she created a political action committee in 1993, shortly after she was elected Kent County clerk. Money raised went to unseat Democrats and help fellow Republicans gain office.

When she ran for secretary of state, she invested $317,000 of her own money into her $1 million campaign. "You can't ask other people to invest in you if you don't invest in yourself," Land says.

How much has she raised for herself and others on the right? "It's got to be millions ... "and I still have friends," she says with a laugh. "That's what's so amazing about this."

Perhaps her greatest achievement is her ability to maintain two distinct personas -- one as apolitical overseer of elections and another as a Republican dynamo.

"All during the eight years that Candice Miller was secretary of state, the Democrats were constantly hammering on her and saying she was partisan," says analyst Ballenger.

"It's been strangely silent all the time Terri Land has been secretary of state."

She refused presidential candidate Ralph Nader a place on the ballot last November because his party, the Reform Party, couldn't agree on a candidate.

Meanwhile, Republicans were the ones who had gathered signatures to get Nader on the ballot. Lucky for Republicans, the state Court of Appeals overturned Land's decision.

And while she worked with one hand to boost voter rolls and run a smooth and controversy-free election, she used the other to co-chair Bush's Michigan campaign.

"I feel passionate about elections and that everybody should vote," says Land of her ability to set aside partisanship. "If everyone votes and everyone participates, we're going to have better government."

Balancing act

Campaigning for and eventually becoming secretary of state triggered a radical change in daily routine for Land, who earns $135,500 a year. She's in Detroit two or three times a week, at evening meetings or dinners on a regular basis and generally criss-crossing the state day after day.

Hibma doesn't join her regularly. "Her role is her role. It's certainly not my role," he says. "I think I've been to Lansing maybe three times since she got the job."

She has a driver when she leaves West Michigan, so she and her cell phone get a lot of work done while on the road. But she didn't like what all that sitting was doing to her slender frame.

In typical Terri style, she took action: She bought a pair of running shoes, laced them up and headed out the door.

"My husband said, "You're going to do what?" Land says with a chuckle. "Gym class was not exactly a priority for me."

On her first outing, she barely made it around the cul-de-sac at the end of her short street in Byron Township. But now she runs two to three miles a couple of times a week and is gearing up for her first 5K next month. Her 19-year-old daughter, Jessica, will join her.

Unlike her mom, Jessica Hibma was a high-school athlete. She's a freshman at the University of Michigan and one of Land's biggest fans.

"She's been a great example," says Jessica, who was class president at Byron Center High School. "She's a very strong person who doesn't let anything get her down."

Land points out that Jess' best friend at school is a Democrat, "which is ... great," she says.

A friendly sort

"I'm amazed at people who do run for office and yet don't like to talk to people and work with people," Land says.

She's a natural at small talk, enjoying the breakfasts with fellow conservatives and the frequent fund-raising lunches and dinners.

"It's like tennis or pingpong. It's that back and forth," Land says. "If you start talking about what someone is interested in or what they're doing, they'll have something to say."

These days she commonly finds herself in front of the crowd instead of mingling among attendees. Addressing an audience doesn't come naturally to her, but she's working at being comfortable in the role.

"If someone tells you they don't have butterflies, they're lying. Everybody wants to be liked," she says.

Land's got a pretty strong following, thanks in part to her commitment to making driver's license renewals easier and quicker. A handful of branch offices have Saturday hours now, on-line renewals are growing in popularity and just last week Land unveiled an ATM-style machine for license-plate tags.

Fifty-six percent of respondents in a January EPIC/MRA poll said their impression of Land was excellent or pretty good. Twenty percent had a negative impression while 24 percent had no opinion.

"I think it's very possible she could be governor," political analyst Ballenger says.

If and when she decides to move beyond secretary of state, she'll have to start talking about the "real issues, like Iraq, jobs and the economy," says pollster Ed Sarpolus.

"It's a big step. And the moment she says she's going to do it, she doesn't sleep for the next two years."

E-mail Beth Loechler: bloechler@grpress.com