Kentucky Governor John Y. Brown, Jr., the son of Cooper's former opponent in the senatorial elections of 1946 and 1966, awarded Cooper the Governor's Distinguished Service Medallion in 1983. Later that year, Senators Walter Huddleston of Kentucky and Howard Baker of Tennessee introduced a bill to honor Cooper by renaming the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area to the Cooper National Recreation Area; Kentucky Congressman Hal Rogers sponsored a parallel measure in the House. As a senator, Cooper had been instrumental in securing congressional approval for the creation of Big South Fork. Opponents of the measure in both Kentucky and Tennessee (the recreation area spans the two states) cited a variety of reasons to retain the old name, and the proposal was eventually dropped at Cooper's request.