17 Facts About Sue Wagner

Sue Wagner was the 30th lieutenant governor of Nevada, serving from 1991 to 1995, the first woman to be elected to the position.

Sue Wagner's father was active in the Maine Republican Party until the family moved to Tucson, Arizona in 1950, where she grew up.

Sue Wagner graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Arizona in 1962 and with a master's degree in history from Northwestern University in 1963.

Sue Wagner served as Assistant dean of women at Ohio State University from 1963 to 1964, when she married Peter B Wagner and moved back to Arizona, where she worked as a reporter for the Tucson Daily Citizen from 1964 to 1965.

Sue Wagner then worked at Catalina High School, teaching government and history from 1965 to 1969 when she, her husband and their two children, Kirk and Kristina, moved to Reno, Nevada.

Sue Wagner chaired Reno's Blue Ribbon Task Force on Housing and served on the Mayor's Citizen Advisory Board from 1973 to 1974.

Sue Wagner served in the state senate from 1981 to 1989, chairing the Judiciary Committee for two legislative sessions, the committee through which all gambling-related bills pass.

Sue Wagner was a driving force behind the creation of the Nevada Commission on Ethics and worked to pass a referendum in 1990 that prohibits the state from amending abortion laws without first winning approval in a referendum.

Sue Wagner is noted for introducing and passing more legislation than any other person in Nevada's history and in 1989 was named one of ten "Outstanding National Republican Legislators".

Sue Wagner thus became the first woman to be elected to the position, though not the first woman to serve as lieutenant governor.

However, on Labor Day, September 3,1990, Sue Wagner was seriously injured in a plane crash just outside the city of Fallon.

Sue Wagner broke her neck and back, suffered a punctured lung and several broken ribs and had to be placed in a body cast.

Sue Wagner went through months of surgery and rehabilitation, suffering from a fusing of several vertebrae and a disease associated with her paralysis.

In 1997, Sue Wagner was appointed to the board of Wells Fargo bank and in April was named by Governor Miller to the Nevada Gaming Commission.

Still suffering from her injuries, Sue Wagner was provided with a special chair and would need to take breaks during some of the 12- and 14-hour-long meetings.

Sue Wagner retired from the Gaming Commission in 2009 and was awarded the Professional Achievement Award by the University of Arizona Alumni Association.

Sue Wagner publicly opposed Sharron Angle, the Republican nominee for the US Senate in 2010, though she did not endorse Democratic incumbent Harry Reid.