Here's why Sarah Palin raced to see Ivana Trump at an Anchorage JC Penney's

Following the death of Donald Trump's first wife, the press has been reporting on Ivana Trump's legacy and, on Sunday, Politico published a fascinating interaction with Sarah Palin that occurred over a quarter century ago.

Politico published an account by Tom Bell about an Alaska assignment in the last millennium.

"Back in 1996, I went looking for Ivana Trump but discovered Sarah Palin," he wrote. "I had no way of knowing that the political history of the 21st century was taking shape in a line outside a J.C. Penny store in Anchorage, Alaska."

"I had been sent to the department store to interview Trump, who was in town promoting her line of jewelry, clothing, beauty products and perfume (called 'Ivana')," he added.

The event happened four years after the tabloid divorce after the real estate developer left his wife for Marla Maples, who would eventually be the mother of his fourth of five children.

"I scanned the line for someone to approach," he reported. "And that’s when I first saw the woman who would later become a sensation in Republican politics, internationally famous as a right-wing firebrand. Back then, she was just a woman in line to meet a celebrity. She was bright-eyed and enthusiastic."

"I don’t remember how she was dressed, but it wasn’t the edgy librarian look she became famous for," he added.

"She said she had told her husband, Todd, that she’d driven to Anchorage to shop at Costco. Instead, she headed straight for Ivana. 'We want to see Ivana,' she said, “because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.' She said she was a commercial fisherman and that her name was Sarah Palin. She confided that she smells like salmon for a large part of the summer," he reported.

Read the full report here.