Sue Wagner was short in stature but a giant among her peers, bent over from a horrific plane crash but unbowed as she fought for what she believed in, gentle of temperament but fierce in her advocacy.

We shall not see her like again.

Indeed, Wagner, who died Tuesday at 86, would be an anachronism in today's political world, a moderate before it became a dirty word, an elected official who believed in doing things to help her state, not saying things to gain a social media following. She was a relic of a bygone era whose first instinct was to reach across the aisle, not to demonize the other side.

I am not sure I have known a more courageous person in all of the years I have covered politics. Many people would have surrendered to a life of solitude after having their back and neck broken in a plane crash, suffering excruciating and constant pain. But Wagner — who was grievously injured in that 1990 Labor Day tragedy that killed one and injured her and three others aboard a small plane — not only went on to win that lieutenant governor's race (and be the first woman to do so), but continued to be active for decades, including a stint on the Nevada Gaming Commission.

I remain convinced all these years later that Wagner would have become the state's first female governor had that plane crash not debilitated her. And she would have been a formidable chief executive who could have accomplished much, who might have changed the trajectory of the state in ways we, sadly, cannot know.

(I always chuckled when I received an email from her at her address: [email protected]. If only …)

Wagner actually believed in things — in women's rights, in ethics for public officials, in an education system that worked, in protecting the environment, and so much more. Her ability to bring parties together, to coalesce her colleagues allowed her to become one of the most accomplished lawmakers in state annals.

Stephanie Tyler, an accomplished woman in her own right who was aboard that plane and filled Wagner's state Senate seat, was with her near the end: "She could hold my hand and squeezed it when I told her that she was the strongest person I've ever had the privilege to know. Sue was a warrior, through and through."

Wagner had the Republican Party in her blood; her father was active in the Maine GOP.  No one ever called her a RINO (Republican in Name Only) — at least no one credible did — because she was so universally respected here by Democrats and Republicans. She was respected because she gave respect; she didn't just talk, she listened to others, too. How quaint that seems today.

Wagner's willingness to compromise to get legislation done belied an innate indomitability and core beliefs that guided her. She blazed a path not just for women in this state, but for many men, too, who were embraced by her and learned from her.

"Not only did she lead our state in service, she was the director of the college internship program that provided the next generation of leaders, including me, to the state legislative process," Rep. Steven Horsford wrote on X after learning of her death.

Wagner had survived much more than that plane crash, too. Shortly after she moved here more than a half-century ago, in what would later become the cruelest of ironies, her husband died in a plane crash in 1980. But she soldiered on, building her formidable legislative legacy and attracting a list of admirers and supporters that surely would have catapulted her into the governor's mansion.

"Some people probably did not like me, but I got along with everybody," Wagner told John L. Smith for a beautiful column he wrote about her two and a half years ago. "I got along with even people that I violently disagreed with on issues. I figured, they were human, we're doing the same thing, we're enclosed in this small town of 20 senators and 40 assembly people, so we all have the same experiences. To me it was normal to like everybody."

Normal to like everybody. Imagine that in today's climate.

Wagner left the GOP to become a nonpartisan in January 2014, declaring, "I did it as a symbol, I guess, that I do not like the Republican Party and what they stand for today ... It's grown so conservative and tea party-orientated and I just can't buy into that. I've left the Republican Party and it's left me, at the same time."

Then-U.S. Sen. Harry Reid wrote in a private email to a friend at the time: "In (her) heart she has always been a progressive dem."

Maybe. Her heart may have been more liberal, fighting for causes including a game-changing 1990 ballot question that cemented abortion rights into law. But Sue Wagner was most of all a pragmatist who was firm in the righteousness of her advocacy. Party didn't matter to her when she was in office, and it certainly did not after she left.

"Even though I have not been a candidate for decades, I am still committed to supporting those who are," she emailed me in 2017. "Of course they have to agree with me on most every issue. That has not changed with advancing age."

Yes, she had a sense of humor, too — an essential quality, I am sure, to survive what she survived.

Wagner was the first female elected lieutenant governor, but Maude Frazier was the first woman to be lieutenant governor, appointed by Gov. Grant Sawyer when the incumbent, Rex Bell, died. Frazier, who had a similarly prodigious record of legislative achievement as Wagner, had a building named after her at UNLV, which had to be torn down in 2009.

Wagner, too, deserves a building named in her honor, perhaps at UNR, a monument to her dedication to a state she loved and her record of achievement. It should stand as tall as she did despite everything, enduring as a trailblazer whose path should never be forgotten and whose legacy puts her in the pantheon of great Nevadans.