FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Suzanne Ernst (702) 889-8426

LAS VEGAS –- Molly Knudtsen, a regent who represented rural Nevada for two decades, died yesterday in Reno after an extended illness. She was 85 years old.

"We have lost a great friend of higher education and a truly remarkable woman,"said Regent Dorothy Gallagher of Elko. "I've known Molly for more than 35 years as a friend, an outstanding rancher and an individual dedicated to the state of Nevada. She will be missed."

Knudtsen is survived by son William Flagg Magee, daughter-in-law Sally Wheeler Magee, grandsons William Wheeler Magee and Dean Flagg Magee, all of Dallas, Texas; and husband William Knudtsen of Oregon.

Private internment will be in Mountain View Cemetery in Reno. Memorial services will be held at 10 a.m., Aug. 15, in the Nightingale Hall of the Church Fine Arts Building at the University of Nevada, Reno, and at 4 p.m. on Aug. 16 at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Reno. For further information on the memorial services or donations to UNR in Mrs. Knudsten's name, please call the University of Nevada, Reno at (775) 784-6969 or (775) 784-1582

Born September 15, 1915 in New York City, Molly Flagg was privately tutored and attended Foxcroft School in Virginia and Kings' College, University of London. She made her formal debut in 1933 in New York City and the following spring was presented at the Court of St. James in London.

Flagg came to the Silver State in 1941 and raced horses in Nevada, California and the Midwest until 1942. That year, she married Richard (Dick) Magee, of Grass Valley, Nevada. Magee owned the Grass Valley Ranch where he raised thoroughbred racehorses, and she developed herds of purebred Herefords.

Molly Magee was active in historic preservation activities in Austin, especially churches, and the local landmark Stokes Castle, which she purchased as a means of saving it. She actively pursued archaeological studies in the Grass Valley area through her own research and publications and by encouraging research projects by the University of Nevada, Reno and the University of California, Berkeley. Through a grant to the Desert Research Institute, she founded the Nevada Archaeological Survey in 1968, a joint program of the university system and the Nevada State Museum.

Magee was elected to the Board of Regents in 1960 and served until 1980. During her time with the board, she served two terms as the vice chair. She played many key roles in the development of the university system, especially in the founding of the Desert Research Institute, the University of Nevada, Reno Anthropology Department, expansion of the College of Agriculture and the University of Nevada Press at the University of Nevada, Reno, and development of the Nevada community colleges.

In 1979, the Knudtsen Resource Center on the UNR campus was named in Molly Knudtsen's honor. She was awarded an honorary doctorate in anthropology in 1975 from UNR and a Distinguished Nevadan Award in 1994 from the Board of Regents.

The Magees were divorced in 1969 and Molly bought Grass Valley Ranch from Dick Magee. She later married Bill Knudtsen, and with his assistance continued to operate the ranch until she suffered a near-fatal horse accident in 1987. During a long recovery, she oversaw the ranch by long-distance from Reno, but sold the cattle herds in 1994 and the ranch in 1995. Her registered Hereford bulls were well known and purchased by ranches throughout the West and Midwest.

Knudtsen was a member of the Nevada State Museum Board of Trustees in the late 1960s, and served for many years as Advisor to the University of Nevada, Reno College of Agriculture and on various Bureau of Land Management advisory boards, and spoke actively on environmental issues. She published a wide variety of books, articles and poems about Nevada history and archaeology, Grass Valley, and numerous other topics.

The Nevada Board of Regents is the elected, 11-member governing body for University and Community College System of Nevada. Comprising two doctoral granting universities, a state college, four comprehensive community colleges and one internationally acclaimed research institute, the UCCSN serves the educational and job training needs of the nation's fastest growing state. As Nevada's only system of higher education, the UCCSN provides educational opportunities to more than 100,000 students.