  I present a preliminary calculation of the hadronic vacuum polarization for
2+1 flavors of improved Kogut-Susskind quarks by utilizing a set of gauge
configurations recently generated by the MILC collaboration. The polarization
function $\Pi(q^2)$ is then used to calculate the lowest order (in
$\alpha_{QED}$) hadronic contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment.
