Jay Jennings

Jay Jennings made his debut on May 3, 1958 at Bonne Terre Hospital. His parents Sonny and Elma Jennings share credit as the executive producers. As the oldest child, he’s the one his parents loved the longest.

Jay grew up on the mean streets of Farmington, attending Washington and Jefferson Elementary Schools and then onto a rather unimpressive academic and athletic careers at both Farmington Junior and Senior High.

One way in which Jay certainly stood out was by getting married his girlfriend Debbie going into his senior year of high school. In doing so, he became the first student council president in the history FHS to have a First Lady.

After graduation in 1976, he attended Mineral Area College before transferring to the Mizzou Journalism School with plans to become a sportscaster.

But there was a little problem. Jay just wasn’t very good on camera. On the bright side, he found out that he was pretty good at using one.

It was off to North Carolina in 1980 when WRAL-TV hired him as its sports photographer. His timing could not have been better. As would happen countless times in the coming years, Jay proved that it’s better to be lucky than good.

Just days after starting at WRAL, Duke hired Mike Krzyzewski and NC State hired Jim Valvano as their basketball coaches. With Dean Smith already at North Carolina, it could not have been a better time to cover hoops on what’s known as Tobacco Road.

He was on the sidelines with his camera to witness the entire college career of a kid from Wilmington named Michael Jordan.

Before you could spell Krzyzewski, Jay was going to one NCAA Final Four after another, eventually covering a grand total of twelve.

He was in New Orleans when that Jordan kid hit a shot to win it for UNC. He was in Albuquerque when the Cardiac Pack of NC State upset Houston. He was also along for the ride when Christian Laettner and Duke won back-to-back titles in ’91 and ’92.

But there was also the ’81 Final Four in Philadelphia where Jay didn’t have a press pass and had to bribe his way in. That made for a creative expense report.

Jay shot way more than college basketball, spending Saturdays in the fall on the sidelines of ACC football games. That led the opportunity to travel to 13 bowl games in such exotic locations as Memphis, Birmingham and Shreveport.

He also got his first taste of motorsports by covering NASCAR and such superstars as Richard Petty, Cale Yarbrough and Dale Earnhardt. Fortunately, they had no clue that Jay didn’t know a carburetor from a cam shaft.

Other highlight were the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, the 2002 Stanley Cup Final and the 2004 Super Bowl in Houston.

Eventually WRAL named Jay as the chief of its photography staff. That meant more news assignments, everything from flying in the station’s helicopter Sky 5 as well as hunkering down on the North Carolina coast for eight different hurricanes.

Jay traveled to Washington, DC for two different presidential inaugurations, George H. W. Bush in 1989 and Bill Clinton in 1993. If you ever need to know how to put on a tux in a port-a-john at night in single digit temperatures for the inaugural ball, just ask him.

He had the privilege of several international assignments. The station sent him to Moscow just three weeks after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992. There was Jerusalem and the Holy Land during Easter week of 1997.

In the late ‘90s, WRAL became the first station in the country to broadcast in high definition. As a result, Jay shot and edited the first documentary produced in HD by a local station in 1998. In ’99, he was part of a team that traveled to Rome for a behind-the-scenes look at the Vatican. That trip included an exclusive chance to videotape the Sistine Chapel as well as meeting Pope John Paul II.

Jay has spent most of the past 20 years shooting and editing more than 100 documentaries. These are programs which are 30 minutes and longer examining issues important to North Carolina.

While awards aren’t the goal, they’re certainly appreciated. Jay has won 17 regional Emmy Awards, six regional Edward R. Murrow Awards and is the five-time North Carolina TV Photographer of the Year.

The WRAL Documentary team won the prestigious Dupont-Columbia Award in 2006. This is the broadcasting equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize.

If that’s not enough, Jay has also been attacked by a man with a cane, been shot at, crashed a hang glider, flown a sailplane, flown in a P-51 Mustang, played hockey goalie, ridden in a stock car at 160 miles an hour and driven in a demolition derby.

Jay and his wife Debbie have been married for 47 years. They’re blessed to live just 15 minutes from their kids and their families. Daughter Amy, her husband Ryan and their two children Amy and Markus in one direction. Son Jason, his wife Martha and their two boys Jackson and Max in the other.