In the 1992 election, Caperton was challenged by State Senator Charlotte Pritt and then-state Attorney General Mario Palumbo in the Democratic primary.

In 1996, West Virginia's advances in education technology gained national recognition when Caperton received the Computerworld Smithsonian Award.

As governor, Caperton focused his efforts on economic development, modern roads and infrastructure, prisons and jails, a clean environment, health care, and government management.

As part of his efforts to promote a clean environment, on August 13, 1992, Governor Gaston Caperton announced the creation of the West Virginia Streams Restoration Program, dedicated to treating acid drainage from coal mining.

Caperton has received numerous state and national awards and special recognition, including ten honorary doctoral degrees.

The facility is a museum, art gallery, and collection of studios for visiting artists that showcases products of West Virginia and organizes the state's "cottage industry."

The Rosen Group, publisher of Niche magazine, named Caperton the 1997 Humanitarian of the Year for creating a progressive market for the state's cottage industry.

Since taking the helm of the College Board, Caperton has sought to enhance the standing and expand the reach of these two programs and to launch a series of initiatives.

[citation needed] Caperton expresses concern about unequal educational opportunity, and he led an effort to encourage students at middle schools to go to college, particularly the least advantaged.

The College Board introduced a set of changes to the SAT that include a writing test, more critical reading, and advanced math.

The goal of the new SAT was to more closely reflect the coursework of the nation's high school students while maintaining what the Board describes as the test's level of rigor and excellence.

[4] As part of that effort, the College Board hosted a presidential candidate forum on October 27, 2011 called "The Future of American Education.

After attending Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, and the University of North Carolina, he returned to Charleston to manage a family-owned insurance firm.

In 2003, Caperton married his third wife, Israeli-American Idit Harel, an MIT PhD and Harvard EdM, education technology expert, mother of three, and founder and CEO of MaMaMedia and Globaloria.