Jacob N. "Jake" McConnico is a media relations officer at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., and has served in that capacity since September 2002.

He works diligently to learn about the interesting happenings at the university and about the work of its students, faculty and staff. McConnico’s primary responsibility is to find newsworthy items about all aspects of Wake Forest life and to relate those to local, state and national media. The goal of this effort is to secure media coverage for the university.

Prior to joining the Wake Forest News Service, McConnico worked as the primary city government reporter for the High Point Enterprise in High Point, N.C. Although his main focus at the Enterprise was on city government, McConnico had the opportunity to write different types of stories like features and profiles. He received a first-place award for profile feature writing from the North Carolina Press Association in 2002 for his story “Quilter stitches masterpieces.”

A 2000 graduate of the prestigious School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, McConnico is a former city editor for the award-winning college newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel. In addition to serving as city editor at the DTH, McConnico also worked for the paper at various times as state and national editor, assistant city editor and a staff writer on the city desk.

During the summer of 1999, McConnico had an internship at the Chapel Hill Herald where he covered the news of Pittsboro and Chatham County. He worked for the Herald while also taking a full summer course load and working for the summer version of the DTH.

In a previous life, McConnico was an underachieving high school student at R.J. Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem. He graduated high school in 1989 with little money for college and few choices regarding the next step in his life. This set of circumstances lead McConnico to the decision to join the United States Air Force. He figured that while in the service he could learn a skill, see the world, save some money and eventually use the G.I. Bill to go back to school.

He served in the Air Force from 1990 to 1994, becoming a veteran of a foreign war by virtue of the fact that he was in the military during the first Desert Storm. McConnico was stationed at Rhein-Main Air Base, near Frankfurt, Germany, and at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. He earned a commercial driver's license at the Academy where he drove a 49-passenger bus for the various athletic teams at the school. This offered him the opportunity to visit most all western and midwestern states.

After the military, McConnico had a variety of strange and low-paying jobs. He became serious about returning to school in 1996, and the rest is history.

McConnico lives in Winston-Salem with his beautiful two-year-old daughter Caroline, and his dog Shu, who is named after legendary J-school professor Jim Shumaker, who was a major influence on McConnico during his time at Carolina.