Biography:

Jim Ryun remains one of America's best-known former athletes. He was the first high schooler to break the four-minute barrier in the mile run, and held the world record for nine years after running a 3:51.1 in 1967.

Ryun was a star at the University of Kansas and competed in three Olympics, winning a silver medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

Ryun was born in Wichita and lives outside of Lawrence. He graduated from Wichita East High School in 1965. Ryun received a bachelor's degree in photojournalism from the University of Kansas in 1970.

After graduating college, he moved to Eugene, Ore., hoping for a better training situation to continue his track career. That lasted another six months, and then because of adverse training conditions, he moved to Santa Barbara, Calif., where he and his family remained for nine years.

The family moved back to Kansas in 1981. Ryun worked in product development and as a motivational speaker, and ran track camps at Baker University in Baldwin City, Kan.

He was first elected to the U.S. House in 1996.

Ryun and his wife, Anne, have four adult children.

Past Campaigns:

Jim Ryun's toughest race was his general election contest in 1996, thefirst time he sought political office. After he emerged from a three-person Republican primary, Ryun found himself locked in a tightbattle with Democrat John Frieden, a prominent Topeka attorney. Political opponents even made an issue of a magazine article he wrotewith his wife about how they had their children follow old-fashioned courtship customs, but Ryun garnered 52 percent of the vote.

In each of his three re-election campaigns since then, Ryun has received 60 percent or more of the vote.

But campaign finance reports for the first quarter of 2004 suggested that Ryun could face a tough challenge from Democrat Nancy Boyda. Boyda raised more than $174,000 and loaned herself an additional $100,000. During the same period, Ryun raised about $93,000, but he had more than $380,000 in cash on hand at the end of the quarter.

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