Nan Tucker McEvoy | Media executive, 95

Nan Tucker McEvoy, 95, a newspaper heiress who headed the parent company of the San Francisco Chronicle in the 1980s and 1990s and who became the first woman to chair the governing board of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, died Thursday at her home in San Francisco of complications from a stroke, said her son, Nion McEvoy.

Ms. McEvoy was already one of the richest women in America when she netted hundreds of millions of dollars in 1999 from the sale of the Chronicle, which she led for 14 years as board chairwoman and principal owner.

Ms. McEvoy worked as a reporter at the Chronicle in her 20s. Since the 1990s, she had presided over the McEvoy Ranch in California, where she became one of the country's foremost producers of premium olive oil.

For 36 years, Ms. McEvoy lived in Washington, where she was a quiet but forceful figure in politics, public service, and cultural philanthropy. - Washington Post