any wrongdoing. In 1990, Wilkinson's wife, Martha, announced that she would seek the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1991. The move was widely seen as a surrogate candidacy so that her husband could continue his administration for a second consecutive term. Her challengers included Lieutenant Governor Jones, Lexington mayor Scotty Baesler, and Dr. Floyd G. Poore, the former Kentucky highway director. With polls consistently showing little support for her candidacy, Mrs. Wilkinson dropped out of the race in May 1991. Earlier in the year, Wallace Wilkinson was diagnosed with limited-stage Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. This diagnosis was also a factor in Ms. Wilkinson's withdrawal from the race. Wallace underwent surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, then received radiation therapy at the University of Kentucky. These treatments eliminated all signs of the disease by 1993, and doctors gave Wilkinson an excellent chance of recovery. As Wilkinson's term ended, he appointed himself to a six-year term on the University of Kentucky's board of regents. The move was unprecedented, and was particularly controversial because of Wilkinson's open feuds with Charles T. Wethington Jr., the university president. An incensed legislature passed a law shortly thereafter that dissolved the existing boards of trustees at all Kentucky public colleges and universities and mandated that they be reconstituted by allowing the governor to select each member from a list of three candidates recommended by an independent review board. Jones, who succeeded Wilkinson as governor, used the provisions of the law to remove Wilkinson and several of his appointees from the university boards. Later life and death After his service as governor, Wilkinson returned to his business pursuits. In the early 1990s, he began borrowing money to keep his bookstore business solvent and to support his lavish lifestyle. His interest in running for another non-consecutive term as governor appeared to be dampened by the system of public financing that Kentucky had in place at that time for gubernatorial elections. In 1995, he published his memoir entitled You Can't Do That, Governor!; a major theme of the book was his disdain for conventional wisdom and political norms. In 1999, he launched ECampus.com, an Internet book retailer. Among the investors in the company were Wendy's founder Dave Thomas, Long John Silver's founder James Patterson, and Ohio State University president William English Kirwan. On February 5, 2001, a group of Wilkinson's creditors filed suit to have his companies seized. During the ensuing