CLEVELAND – In a suburban Cleveland hotel this week, Robert A. Gleason Jr., chairman of Pennsylvania’s Republican Party, ticked off names of some of the country’s most influential political leaders — all of whom he knows.

There’s GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. And, of course, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

But, scrolling though photos on his cell phone, Gleason stopped on one in particular.

“That’s her,” he said, a smile crossing his face.

It was his granddaughter, Hannah Noyes, a classics and political science major at the University of Pennsylvania. She was standing next to the state delegation’s sign on the floor of the Republican National Convention, where she is spending the week working as a page.

“It’s wonderful,” Gleason said of the latest member of his family to attend a Republican convention.

The Gleason name and legacy stretches back decades in Cambria County, Pennsylvania.

Robert A. Gleason Sr. chaired the county’s Republican Party for nearly 47 years, until August 1996, making him the longest-serving county chairman in the country. His son held the post for nearly 15 years and has been at the helm of the state party for a decade.

“It goes back to my grandfather, and my uncle, my cousins, and my father,” said Robert Gleason Jr.

Chris Gleason, his brother and finance chairman for the state party, remembered sitting around the dinner table as a child, talking about “politics and voting and all those things.”

“My father always brought newspapers home. We had three or four newspapers a day at home. We used to read through those,” he said.

An interest in politics just sort of imprinted on the younger generations.

Robert Gleason Jr.’s daughter, Jane, attended the 2012 convention as a delegate.

“And, now, my granddaughter is a page,” he said. “It’s very exciting, and it becomes very personal whenever you have your family involved with politics. We’ve always been involved.”

Noyes described the “amazing” experience of having her photo taken on the floor of the convention – just like the images shared by other members of her family through the years.

“My family are who got me into politics,” she said. “I’ve grown up in a great, conservative Republican family.”

Conventions have changed through the many years that Gleasons have been on the floor.

Robert Gleason Jr. said his first, when President Gerald Ford narrowly held off a challenge from Ronald Reagan in 1976, was far more suspenseful than today’s gatherings, which are more like coronations of the presumptive nominee.

“They’re just media events now,” he said. “They’re to get the faithful fired up, and then to launch the candidate into the campaign.”

Dave Sutor is a reporter for The Johnstown, Pa., Tribune-Democrat. Follow him on Twitter @Dave_Sutor.