TCNJ

42 The College of New Jersey Magazine I t all started with the hoops-loving farm girl from Middletown, New Jersey. Anna May Brasch, Class of 1908, left that farm to attend the New Jersey State Normal School, where she suited up for the basketball team — long sleeves, longer skirt, her thick hair piled atop her head — and studied education before going on to a career as a teacher, principal, and superintendent in Monmouth County. She never married nor had children, so it's not quite right to call Anna May the matriarch of one of TCNJ's biggest and proudest families. But she was the first. We know this thanks to Anna May's great-nephew and godson, Philip Kuhlthau '76, MA '80 who, with the connection to Anna on his maternal side and other alumni on his paternal side, has become the unocial historian of his extended family's loyal association to the college. There are 13 of them in total. As he puts it, "We are a pride of lions. And there's a lot of pride in this pride." Growing up in Monmouth Beach, Kuhlthau hadn't planned on following his parents (John "Jake" Kuhlthau '50 and Audrey (Bonello) Kuhlthau '48) to what was by then Trenton State College. But on a trip to campus with a girl he was dating — it was she who was interested in the school — Kuhlthau met an admissions ocer, Lamond Smith '50, who gave him a funny look before asking, "Your parents wouldn't happen to be Jake and Audrey Kuhlthau, would they? I went to school with them. By the way, where are you going to school?" The rest was details: Phil played soccer and baseball for the Lions, left with a political science degree, and came back for a master's in education. He ended up marrying a Rutgers grad, but their kids figured things out: Their son John '11 was followed by daughters Kaitlin '12, Katherine '14, and Kristen '15. The branches fan out farther still: Kuhlthau's cousin once removed, William Lester '16, was a guard on the Lions basketball team, and Kuhlthau's wife's family includes Emily '17 and Abby Roberts '20. The Roberts sisters grew up across the street from Kuhlthau's family and watched as all four of their older cousins — three of whom would go on to teaching careers — headed to TCNJ. Now a sophomore studying health and exercise science, Abby updates her older cousins on campus social life and professors they've shared. She knows she's part of a unique legacy, and while she's not thinking about the next generation just yet, she's at least willing to entertain the notion. "It's kind of far o to think about my own kids," she says with a laugh, "but if they end up here someday, that'd be pretty cool." —Ryan Jones CLASS N O T E S W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 "We are a pride of lions. And there's a lot of pride in this pride."

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