Patton makes personal appeal for public university

FRANKFORT, Ky. - Former Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton has made a personal appeal to lawmakers to create a new public university in the state's Appalachian region to build intellectual capital.

Patton, a Democrat from Pikeville who served two terms in the state's highest office, has been championing a proposal that he believes can help the impoverished mountain region where fewer than one in 10 people have bachelor's degrees.

The proposal is to turn the private University of Pikeville, where Patton is president, into a public university by using revenue from an existing tax on coal mined in the Appalachian region.

Some critics have complained that the economic recession has pinched the state's existing universities and that Kentucky can't afford a ninth four-year campus.