In response to a recent column castigating Republican lawmakers for trying to get their grubby mitts on the Alaska Permanent Fund, I got an e-mail that began: "What Democratic official has ever done as much for this state compared to the Republican Party?"

Now, you could take this as proof we need to teach Alaska history in our schools. Which we do. Citizens ought not be so ignorant of their state's history. But I also took it as an opportunity to write a little bit about Bill Egan.

Tomorrow, for those who have forgotten or never knew, is William A. Egan Day, established by the state Legislature to, in the words of the statute, "honor William 'Bill' Egan, the first governor of the state of Alaska, for a lifetime of service to the territory and state of Alaska. William A. Egan Day may be observed by suitable observances and exercises by civic groups and the public."

Egan is one of six Alaskans to have a day dedicated to him. They are, in order of receiving the honor, James Wickersham, Tony Dimond, Ernest Gruening, Bob Bartlett, Egan and Elizabeth Peratrovich.

I don't know of any observances and exercises planned for Egan. His name is on our convention center and the main drag in Juneau, but who he was and what he did are largely unknown these days.

Why? Several reasons. His last day in public office occurred before the pipeline boom brought so many current Alaskans to the state. He died 19 years ago. And his contemporaries are dying out; if Egan had lived, tomorrow would be his 89th birthday. In Alaska, where history is what happened after I got off the airplane, this is a recipe for obscurity.

But Bill Egan did too much for this state to be so easily forgotten. Here's the short form: territorial legislator from 1941 to 1944 and 1947 to 1955, president of the Alaska Constitutional Convention, 1955 to 1956, Tennessee Plan provisional United States senator, 1956 to 1958, governor of Alaska, 1959 to 1966 and 1970 to 1974.

Those are the jobs he held. What he did in them was campaign tirelessly for statehood and, once it was achieved, oversee the establishment of state government and its first years of operation, set up the state ferry system, start the highway construction program and on and on. In his final term, he shaped the oil tax policies that have given us nearly 25 years of free state government. These are just some of the highlights. A complete list would take more space than I have.

Egan did all this with only a high school education. Unlike most of our current elected officials, he was born in Alaska. He graduated from Valdez High School in the teeth of the Great Depression and, like most of his contemporaries, earned his living by doing what he could find: packer, miner, bartender, cannery worker, grocer. When, for a campaign picture in 1974, he climbed on a D8 Cat at the Coldfoot pipeline construction camp, he actually had some idea of how to run it.

Egan was a success as a candidate and an officeholder for a number of reasons, but a few stand out.

He worked hard, on the campaign trail and in office. As everyone in Juneau knew, the lights in the governor's office burned long after everyone else had gone home.

He had a prodigious memory. If he met you once, he remembered you forever and, in most cases, every member of your family, too. In office, his memory made him the master of detail, and he knew the government down to a level not since matched by any other governor.

He believed in Alaska. Every politician says that, but Egan was a supporter of statehood for almost 20 years before it came about because he thought Alaskans could do a better job of managing their own affairs. He believed in what he and most of his contemporaries called progress, the improvement of life through hard work and, in the state's case, resource development.

That belief was falling out of fashion by the time Egan last ran for office. What he called progress, more and more people called development, and they doubted that all development was progress. Insofar as the 1974 election was about ideas, it was about that idea, and a majority of voters preferred Jay Hammond's doubts to Bill Egan's certainty.

Egan's beliefs might seem old-fashioned to us today, but they served him and his state well for a lot of years.

Oh, and he was a Democrat. How about that?