"They held hands or something like that," he remembers. "Did they go around with their hands all over each other at inappropriate times? I'd say no."

After his first year at Stanford University, Romney followed Mormon tradition and went on a two-and-a-half year mission to proselytize individuals in the south of France.

"When you're going to be away from your family for two years and you're still a teenager, sure you're nervous about that," says Scott Romney, reflecting on his own missionary experience in England. "Mitt left Ann behind. It was a major commitment to try to be of service."

Romney says his missionary experience enabled him to interact with people much less privileged than he.

"By virtue of the service that I've had the opportunity to give both in the church and outside it," Mitt told the Boston Globe earlier this year, "I've spent time every week with people of very modest means."

Romney returned from France in December, 1968. Three months later, he and Ann were married.

In order to be closer to his wife, Romney transferred to Brigham Young University and finished his undergraduate studies there.

But the summer before his senior year, he returned to Michigan once again to help his mother Lenore mount a campaign for the seat of Sen. Philip Hart (D-Mich.).

Although Lenore Romney lost the election, her son says this campaign experience taught him the differences between a state and national race.

Upon graduating, Romney decided to attend a joint program at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.

Although Bailey--also in the joint Harvard program--did not see Mitt often in school, he says his friend "had a reputation as being a very smart, very good student in the law school."

The educational experience brought Romney, his wife and the first of their five sons to Massachusetts, where the family has spent the last 23 years.

Joining Bain

In 1975, armed with three degrees, Romney had numerous career options--from starting a business to taking a high-priced desk job.

"It's a very tough choice to pick the entrepreneurial route," says Bailey, his fellow JD/MBA graduate. "People get offered very large amounts of money to do non-entrepreneurial things."