Patsy Sloan has been described as a trailblazer, breaking two glass ceilings in local politics as Bowling Green’s first woman city commissioner and mayor.
City officials confirmed that Sloan passed away Tuesday at the age of 85.
Sloan was elected as a city commissioner in 1978 and served as mayor from 1988 to 1991. She also taught at Bowling Green High School for over 30 years.
Current mayor Todd Alcott told WKU Public Radio that Sloan’s success was a boon for the community as a whole.
“I know that she loved our community,” Alcott said. “I grew up seeing her on TV, and my mom was a teacher. It had a reverence for me because (I got) to see the barriers be broken in our own community and to know what it means.”
Alcott would come to know Sloan personally after running for mayor himself. Though the two disagreed at times, he said, they shared a common love of the city.
“It’s beyond politics, it’s who we are as a community because we care more about each other individually than we care about the party’s outcome,” Alcott said. “I think that speaks highly to who we are, and I’d like to see that continue.”
Many in the community knew Sloan not just as a leader, but as a teacher. Alcott said several people within the city’s government remember sitting in her class decades ago, including City Manager Jeff Meisel.
“I’ve known Patsy since I was about nine years old. My grandparents lived next door to her,” Meisel stated in a release. “She let me play in her backyard. Then I had her in class when I was a junior. That was one of the most interesting classes I had in high school.”
His graduation did not spell the end of his time with Sloan, however.
“She’s always been a long-time personal friend. We served on several boards together since she’s been in retirement. She’s always been a really engaged former mayor,” Meisel said.
Former mayor Johnny Webb, Sloan’s immediate successor, said there was never any doubt that Sloan loved her city.
“Patsy and I were friends. Our political views were not perfectly aligned. What was perfectly aligned was our love for Bowling Green,” he stated. “We both always had the best interest in moving Bowling Green forward. She was someone who was easy to work with.”
Webb said Sloan was also “instrumental” in the construction of the city’s convention center on Wilkinson Trace. Originally dubbed the Warren County Convention Center, the facility was renamed Sloan Convention Center in 2002 in her honor.
Sloan remained active in several community organizations after stepping out of the political arena, including the Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport Board, the Warren County Downtown Economic Development Authority and the Bowling Green Municipal Utilities Board.
Funeral arrangements are under the direction of J.C. Kirby & Son Funeral Chapels. Mayor Alcott has ordered all city flags to remain at half-staff under after Sloan’s funeral.