Olympia Snowe

Olympia Jean Bouchles Snowe (born February 21, 1947 in Augusta, Maine) is a Republican politician and, as of 2005, the senior United States senator from Maine.

Early life

Snowe was born Olympia Jean Bouchles, the daughter of George and Georgia Goranites Bouchles. Her father emigrated to the United States from Sparta, Greece.

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Snowe's early life was riddled with tragedy; her mother died of breast cancer when she was eight, and her father died of heart disease barely a year later. Orphaned, she was moved to Auburn, Maine, to be raised by her aunt and uncle, a barber and a textile mill worker respectively, along with their five other children. Her brother John was raised separately, by other family members. Within a few years, illness would also claim her uncle's life.

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Following her mother's death, Snowe was sent to St. Basil's Academy in Garrison, New York, where she remained from the third grade to the ninth. Returning to Auburn, she attended Edward Little High School, before entering the University of Maine in Orono, Maine in 1969, where she earned a degree in political science. Shortly after graduation, Bouchles married her fiancee, Republican state legislator Peter Snowe.

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