Hi JoeyMcDaniel - While creating a thread, user does have an option of uploading an image as an attachment or insert into the post itself using RTE. To develop this, you need to consider following,
- Keep a default image in case a thread doesn't have any image.
- If the image is in the body, scan the body and extract it.(depends if you want to give priority to the img in body or in the attachment)
- if their is no image in body, check for the attachments, if the image isn't there either, go to step 1.
Let me know if this helps