Modern Hawai'i history pays less attention to the life and work of William F. Quinn, the former governor, than it should.

Quinn, who died this week at 87, is by any definition a founding father of the Hawai'i we know today.

As our last appointed governor, the youthful Harvard-educated lawyer swung into the job with far more energy than some of his predecessors who tended to treat the post as largely custodial.

He was determined to make changes, for the better, for his adopted home.

But that work quickly became far more serious when Quinn won the governorship against John A. Burns in the first statehood election. He suddenly had to deal with creating a modern state government from scratch, appointing hundreds of people from boards and commissions to his own cabinet and even a brand-new state judiciary.

Quinn handled this task with aplomb and a fair amount of bipartisanship even in the face of a Legislature that was in no mood to be overly cooperative.

While Quinn won the popular vote for governor, he faced a state House that was staunchly Democratic and a divided Senate, where minority Democrats could — and did — link up with dissident Republicans to give the governor a hard time.

Through it all, and through an election two years later when he lost his re-match with Burns, Bill Quinn approached his public duties and responsibilities with enormous good cheer, boundless energy and a true appreciation for the land and people of the place he called home.

Quinn was a fine singer and in fact, as a young man, harbored serious theatrical ambitions. Eventually, he took his talents to another stage and we are all the better for it.