BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Sunday evenings at Ray and Pauline Brokamp's house are punctuated by 200 openings and closings of a screen door.

Or so it seems.

Children of various sizes continually trickle through their grandparents' pleasant, screened porch. Toddlers take small treks. Older kids kick a ball or commandeer the family's legendary 30-foot swing.

But they inevitably find their way back to the airy porch, and the family that awaits them there. It is their center. For more than 20 years - on virtually every Sunday night - it has been a place of love and security for three generations of Brokamps.

The phrase ''Brokamp family'' is redundant. Inherent in being a Brokamp, or marrying a Brokamp, is an enthusiasm for family dinners, vacations and pillow fights.

But the Brokamps are more than a remarkably functional family. They are a Cincinnati dynasty. What the Tafts are to politics and the Clooneys to entertainment, the Brokamps are to education.

A easy decision to make

Ray Brokamp has long been a towering figure in the history of Cincinnati schools. The Korean War and later a lucrative private-industry job deterred him for a while. Then he came to his senses.

''I went to school to be a teacher,'' he admitted to himself. In 1953, he and Pauline agreed he should leave a $12,000-a-year job to make $3,200 as a math teacher at Woodward High School.

Actually, there was no decision to make. ''All you had to do was listen to him,'' Pauline says. ''When he talked about education, he just came alive.''

The rest of his career was equally fated. Without applying for a single position, he was recruited from math teacher at Woodward, Taft and Western Hills high schools to an assistant principal. Before becoming assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, he served as principal of Walnut Hills High School.

Daughter Debbie was a Walnut student at the time. ''I always had the impression everyone liked my dad,'' she remembers.

They did. Because Ray Brokamp liked them back.

And he liked what he did for a living. Growing up, his children saw it first-hand as they played in the gym while he prepared lesson plans, or hung out with teachers while he toiled in the office.

''His school was kind of like a second home,'' says son Steve.

Debbie remembers her father saying there was never a day when he didn't want to go to work.

Love of family was key concern

But the one thing he and Pauline never told their children was to make a career of education. Actually, the emphasis wasn't on career at all. It was on concern. It was on people - Pauline Brokamp's specialty.

''The message was that you didn't have to be something to be somebody,'' says son Jeff. ''What was stressed most was just love of the family. Later on, that transferred to my job - that there's nothing more important than treating people with care and respect. That is non-negotiable.''

If it sounds like the makings of success, it is. Ray and Pauline's fourth child is the same Jeff Brokamp who is making a swift and well-noted rise through Cincinnati schools. He is the principal who started the district's first year-round school, and who, this year, has taken over the principalship at a crucial time for School for the Creative and Performing Arts.

Daughter Debbie Haffey is a well-respected math teacher at Oak Hills High School. Daughter Pam and her husband Richard Giuliano both have successful teaching careers in Hamilton City Schools, and son Steve is a popular third-grade teacher at Indian Hill Elementary. Only son Greg, who lives near Chicago, is not in education. Nevertheless, he recently won an award for teaching religion classes. Family members wonder if he won't yet end up in the ''business.''

Debbie's daughter Tricia has, moving from liberal arts to elementary education. She grins with resignation. ''You can't get away from it in this family.''

From the porch bustling with grandchildren, Ray Brokamp points out the sturdy poplar branch that supports the well-used swing. ''That branch has held that swing for 25 years,'' he says with a smile. ''It's as if it knows its function.''

After 44 years of enriching the lives of Tristate schoolchildren, the Brokamp family knows something of that as well.

Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati 45202 or fax at 768-8340.

RAMSEY ARCHIVE