Later Life
Patton had publicly stated that he was planning a run against Republican U.S. Senator Jim Bunning in 2004, but the scandals that plagued him near the end of his administration derailed those plans. He retired to Pikeville, Kentucky, after the election of his successor, Republican Ernie Fletcher. He became a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Pikeville, the Big Sandy Regional Economic Development Board and chairman of the Pikeville/Pike County Industrial and Economic Authority. Tina Conner's final claim against Patton – for "outrage" – was dismissed by a judge in May 2006. In October 2006, Conner filed a second lawsuit against Patton alleging misconduct by a public official and government oppression; a Franklin County judge dismissed the suit, claiming it was an attempt by Conner to re-litigate the claims from her first suit.
Governor Ernie Fletcher renamed a section of U.S. Route 119 in eastern Kentucky as the Paul E. Patton Highway at a ceremony on October 30, 2008. On February 1, 2009, Patton was chosen chairman of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE). On August 12, 2009, he was announced as the next president of Pikeville College (now the University of Pikeville). In September 2009, the Executive Branch Ethics Commission issued an advisory opinion that Patton could serve in both roles without a significant conflict of interest because the CPE wields very little oversight of Kentucky's private colleges. Patton was advised to allow someone other than himself to be the official liaison between the University of Pikeville and the CPE and to recuse himself from CPE discussions on matters "that directly involve his private institution or that would affect his institution differently than any other similarly situated private postsecondary institution."
Patton was formally installed as president of the University of Pikeville on February 16, 2010. He also serves as a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer in Public Policy and Leadership. In late 2011, Patton announced that he and Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives Greg Stumbo would ask the General Assembly to consider adding the University of Pikeville as the ninth state-supported university in the Kentucky university system. On December 30, 2011, he announced his resignation from the Council on Postsecondary Education to avoid any potential accusations of a conflict of interest regarding the proposal in the 2012 General Assembly.
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