Sarah Palin Will Meet Billy Graham Tonight

Sarah Palin is taking a few hours' break from her Going Rogue book tour tonight for dinner with world renown evangelist Billy Graham and his son Franklin. McClatchy Newspapers' Charlotte Observer reports:

Sarah Palin, who will sign books Monday at Fort Bragg, plans a stopover in Montreat today to have dinner with 91-year-old Billy Graham and his son, Franklin Graham, who issued the invitation.

"He just saw that she was going to be in the area and he said to come by," said Jeremy Blume, a spokesman for Franklin Graham. Former Alaska Gov. Palin, who was the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008, will fly into Asheville this afternoon, Blume said, and then go to Billy Graham's mountaintop home in Montreat for dinner.

Although Sarah Palin has never met the elder Graham, she and Franklin Graham teamed up on a relief mission to some Alaskan communities which were hit hard last winter by the combination of a lean salmon fishing season and a spike in prices for diesel fuel and gasoline. The two delivered food to Russian Village and other communities as part of an aid effort that flew more than 40,000 pounds of donated food and supplies to to villages along the Yukon River.

- JP