SHAWNEE {AP} -- The Rev. Michael Roethler, who served twenty years as president of St. Gregory's College and later was named to the state Ethics Commission, died Monday. He was 65.

Rev. Roethler died at Shawnee Regional Hospital at 1:30 a.m. due to complications from diabetes.

Ethics Commission Director Marilyn Hughes said Roethler, who was appointed to the commission in 1991 and resigned in November, wrote the state's new gift-reporting law for lawmakers and lobbyists.

Rev. Roethler started at St. Gregory's College in 1952. He served as instructor, dean of men and athletic director before being named president in 1970.

He was born April 3, 1930, in Aberdeen, South Dakota. He graduated from St. Gregory's College in 1949, entered St. Gregory's Abbey and professed his vows as a Benedictine monk on July 11, 1950.

He received his bachelor's degree from St. Benedict's College in Atchison, Kansas, and was ordained to the priesthood on December 17, 1955.

He received his master's degree from Catholic University of America in Washington, D .C., and his doctorate from Fordham University.

A funeral Mass will be held at 4:00 p.m. Thursday at W.P. Wood Fieldhouse on the campus of St. Gregory's College.

Burial will follow at the St. Gregory's Abbey Cemetery.