Louie B. Nunn - Later Career

Later Career

Following his term as governor, Nunn opened a law practice in Lexington. He campaigned for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1972, losing to Democrat Walter "Dee" Huddleston. His loss came despite a landslide victory for Richard Nixon in the state and was generally blamed on his support for an increased sales tax during his gubernatorial administration. He continued working on behalf of Republican candidates, and backed Ronald Reagan's primary challenge to incumbent Gerald Ford in 1975. His last run for office came in 1979 when he was again the Republican nominee for governor against Democrat John Y. Brown, Jr. He decried the excessive spending, expanding government, and increased state employment that had occurred under Democratic administrations. He also attacked Brown for his playboy image (he was married to former Miss America Phyllis George) and his refusal to release his tax returns, as well as his inexperience in government. Despite these attacks, Nunn lost by a vote of 558,008 to 381,278 and returned to his legal practice.

In the 1980s, Nunn served on the boards of regents of Morehead State University and Kentucky State University. He served as a lecturer at Western Kentucky University, and received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Louisville in 1999. During the late 1980s, he criticized Senator Mitch McConnell, one of the emerging leaders of the state's Republican party, for not doing more to support other Republicans in their bids for office; McConnell maintained that he had to focus on his own reelection campaign in 1990. In 1988, Nunn unsuccessfully challenged Congressman Jim Bunning in his bid to retain his position as Kentucky's Republican national committeeman.

In 1994, Nunn's wife Beula filed for divorce from a hospital bed where she lay dying of cancer. She claimed she was trying to preserve some of her estate for her children. A Metcalfe County judge granted the divorce, but Nunn challenged the ruling, and it was later set aside. Some property issues were still pending at the time of Beula's death in 1995. During the divorce proceedings, Nunn's son Steve sided with his mother, causing a rift between him and his father. A 1994 letter from the elder Nunn alleged that Steve Nunn physically and verbally abused Louie Nunn and other members of his family. The letter was discovered in 2009 when Steve Nunn was charged with the murder of his former fiancée, Amanda Ross.

In 1999, Nunn again considered a bid for governor, precluding a potential bid by his son, Steve. He cited personal and health issues for not making the race. In 2000, he backed the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain. Nunn was reconciled to his son Steve, and when Steve ran for governor in 2003, Louie supported him. After Steve Nunn ran third in a four-way primary, the elder Nunn supported the Republican nominee, Ernie Fletcher, hosting a fundraiser for him.

Nunn also became an advocate of legalizing industrial hemp in Kentucky, writing, "Frankly, I was opposed to the legalization of hemp for years because I had been of the opinion hemp was marijuana. I was short-sighted in my thinking, and I was wrong." In 2000, Nunn secured an acquittal for actor Woody Harrelson, who came to Lee County, Kentucky, and planted hemp seeds in open defiance of Kentucky's law forbidding the cultivation of hemp. Later, he traveled to South Dakota where, at the base of Mount Rushmore, he publicly presented an Oglala Lakota leader with bales of hemp after the tribe's crop was confiscated by officers from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

Louie B. Nunn died of a heart attack at his home in Versailles, Kentucky, on January 29, 2004, hours after hosting a luncheon with labor leaders seeking help in dealing with the newly-elected Fletcher administration. He was buried at the Cosby Methodist Church cemetery in Hart County, Kentucky. The Cumberland Parkway was renamed the Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway in 2000, and the main lodge at the Barren River Lake State Resort Park is also named in Nunn's honor.