Posted on: Saturday, September 25, 2004

EDITORIAL
A community builder

Hawai'i lost one of its best citizens this week.

Emmett Cahill, who made his share of news as chief executive of the John Howard Association, a prisoner aid organization, died at his retirement home at Volcano at the age of 90.

With good humor and an abundance of modesty, Cahill worked tirelessly to make his adopted home a better place.

His passion was social causes, usually the ones that benefitted those who had no voice of their own: prisoners, the poor, Hansen's Disease patients and others.

His intellectual hobby was history; Cahill was the author of several books, ranging from a history of Hawaiian postage stamps through others that focused on early figures in Island history.

Over the years Hawai'i has been blessed by those who moved here and decided to make their adopted home a better place. Emmett Cahill, witty, self-deprecating, always Irish and always Catholic, typified that special breed.