When time came to pick a replacement of John W. Jacobs Jr. on the Brenau Board of Trustees, the trustees and the Jacobs family made a unanimous choice: Anna Alexander Jacobs, WC ’86.

Although the Charlotte, N.C., native married into the Jacobs family, that is a mere technicality. The second-generation Brenau alumna and Alpha Chi Omega member went to work at Jacobs Media as a Brenau journalism and public relations major and currently functions as director of online media for the Web-based news operation. She and husband, Jay, have three children –two daughters, Louisa and Lydia Ann, and son John Wesley Jacobs IV. Anna and sister, Chris Fitzgerald, WC ’84, followed their mother to Brenau, and Dotty Eleazar Alexander, WC ’60, was also a Brenau trustee.

“John Jacobs’ death created an enormous void on our board,” says Pete Miller, the current chairman, “but I have to agree with the family: the best person to fill it is Anna. She has a passion for education and she definitely has a passion for Brenau.”

As Jay Jacobs expressed it, he and his wife, along with his mother, Martha, and sister, Elizabeth Carswell, also are all joined at the brain – and at the heart – on interpreting the legacy John Jacobs wrote for Brenau. “We went into it faster than we intended and would like to have had more closure on this with John,” Anna Jacobs says. “I had the honor of knowing my father-in-law’s heart for Brenau, and that will give me a compass for my service to the university.”

John Jacobs looked at Brenau’s preparation of journalism and broadcasting students through the prism of how well they would be prepared to work in his – or any other – communications business when they graduated. And, he always kept his eye on the horizon. “People might say you don’t always have to be out there looking for the next big thing,” she said, “but, yea, you do. I am as excited as John was about the future. We’re already seeing what well-prepared Brenau students can bring to us [at Jacobs Media], and it is only going to get better.”