OREM — While he was a student at Brigham Young University, John Jacob parked the bus he drove for the Alpine School District outside his apartment.

And, yes, the kids on the school bus regularly sang "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" to him.

Using the familiar ditty in campaign ads hasn't been any kind of temptation for Jacob, who hopes to unseat five-term incumbent Chris Cannon in next week's Republican primary. The winner will face Democrat Christian Burridge in a race for Utah's 3rd District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The song still delights kids, of course. Children handing out doughnuts on Jacob's behalf at the Utah County and state Republican conventions sang the song over and over, with a slight, simple twist concocted on their own: "Whenever he goes out, the people always shout, 'VOTE for John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt!' "

Today, the former school-bus driver and air traffic controller has a net worth of about $19 million — more than fellow millionaire Cannon; the men have poured nearly $400,000 of their own money into the race — built in land deals and water-rights development.

It's a far cry from his boyhood, when summers were spent in the mountains above Utah Valley, herding sheep for his father, who had followed his own father into the sheep-and-wool business.

Jacob slept in a trailer with a coal stove, making sourdough biscuits, drinking spring water, waking before daylight to reach the sheep before they woke up and began to scatter.

"They were a lot more work if you slept in because I'd have to round them up," Jacob said.

After grazing and drinking, the sheep would lay down and chew their cud. Jacob would return to his trailer, do chores and nap.

"I can always sleep anyplace," he said, "because I learned to nap when I could."

Planning a future

Jacob graduated from Lehi High School, where he wrestled and played chess — he has a chess rating of about 1600, he said — and after an LDS Church mission to Oklahoma he went to BYU feeling a bit lost about his future.

"It was hard to know what John was going to be and what was I going to do," he said.

He'd ruled out sheepherding.

"I love the mountains," the avid snowmobiler said, "but I hate sheep. I like to eat them."

He met his wife, the former Diane Kimball — "I found and won my first campaign at BYU" — drove that school bus and then left school to sell real estate. The housing market dried up during the Carter administration, so he returned to school and worked as a phone operator for Ma Bell.

Then Ronald Reagan fired 10,000 air traffic controllers. Jacob applied, passed the federal test and worked for 13 years in Cut Bank, Mont., and Littleton, Colo. His performance on tests and in the job was self-revealing.