Originally founded by Jeanne Plumley and her friend and business partner Peggy Day, Peggy Jean’s Pies spent a decade as a sweet spot in the Columbia community. Shortly after Peggy’s passing, the business closed and remained closed for another decade. After these year’s Jeanne and her daughter Rebecca Miller decided to refund the business in Columbia and have since grown the pie company to be larger than ever. 

As the mother-daughter pair continue to work maintaining and building the business, they are hoping to expand into a larger more open and accessible space for their team and their customers. The pair works constantly together and with Rebecca’s two children and husband, and keeps the baking tables lighthearted and full of constant jokes, stories and nagging. 

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Helvetica Neue’} Running a business as a mother-daughter pair, Jeanne and Rebecca move through the kitchen and around each other with ease. Working from separate work stations, crossing only between steps or in hunt of a new team, the two move throughout the space with necessary communication and extra jokes and questions flowing constantly.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Helvetica Neue’} Rebecca works through the list of pies to be made for the day with employee Emma Bannister. Bannister began working at the bakery around October 2018.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Helvetica Neue’} Jeanne’s favorite pie, pumpkin chiffon requires a two day, start-to-finish preparation and baking process. The extended process makes the pie a bit more complicated than others and because of this, Jeanne is the only one who is willing to take the extra time to make this specific pie.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Helvetica Neue’} While trying to determine which photo to post on Instagram about holiday specials, Rebecca and her daughter Elle laugh trying to explain a story to Jeanne. After choosing a photo and a caption finally, Rebecca handed the phone back to Elle and said, “You pick. Santa emoji. Christmas tree emoji. Jingle bell emoji… whatever emojis you want.”

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Helvetica Neue’} In celebration of the holidays, Jeanne and Rebecca decided to send out holiday cards to all of their favorite customers. The cards include a family photo with the three generations as headed by Jeanne, and a handwritten note on the back. Included is a gift card for a baby pie.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Helvetica Neue’} Telling old stories from years past or from just yesterday is a constant stream of discussion at Peggy Jean’s Pies. The pair reflects and laughs with employees about worst customers, best customers and every pie disaster in between.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Helvetica Neue’} Cramped and a bit crowded in the current space, Jeanne and Rebecca are hoping to move out of their current space and into a new larger, more open area. The new space would ideally offer a pie bar, where customers can purchase a slice of pie and talk to employees while they are working, a larger sales area and a larger kitchen. They received their first space bid in the final few days of November and are waiting for a few more before moving forward.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Helvetica Neue’} Watching the door in await for the arrival of Rebecca and her daughter Elle, Jeanne waits for them to come in from the car. Each day Rebecca picks up her daughter Elle from school and brings her back to the bakery for a few hours in the afternoon before they all head home. Usually, a bit of overlap falls during this time when Elle has arrived and before Jeanne leaves for home for the day.

For my final project, I ended up working with Rebecca and Jeanne over at Peggy Jean’s Pies. I wanted to focus specifically on the working relationship that the two have and how they interact with each other in the workspace and outside of it. Last minute changes and communications drops prevented the out of work shooting from occurring, and so unfortunately my project ended up being limited to their work space. To me the work is a bit repetitive and missing and an extra side of their relationship because of this that I would like to add in. Obviously my time limited it but I do appreciate that while the project was shot on three different days, the pieces fit together and don’t feel jarring and separated - absolutely because all shot in the same workspace, but a positive. Anyway, the story is below and captions are attached. 

After a few weeks and after shooting the pieces that we ACTUALLY needed for our story, we have recompleted our video on Hans Heruth, an MU student composer who created, crafted and helped perform an opera with the University. After some technical difficulties on our original submission that changed our goals with the project, we were able to re-plan and re-craft to match our new vision.

We changed mindsets a couple different times but ended up on a combo of why music is a part of his life and how it has translated into this project and this opera. I feel endlessly better about this final product then I did about the last one and I really like the progress and collab that happened on this section of the project. The video editing felt much more streamlined once we sat down and actually started putting material together. There are a couple changes that I would like to make just for minor fixes that I just found this morning but generally I liked this. 

I enjoy multimedia a lot and video work a lot and this really just made be feel more confident about moving forward and doing more video work. 

Having been able to attend and participate
in CPOY for the past few years, I really enjoyed this year and getting to
continue seeing more and more of the contest from behind. I think that as I
work more and more as an editor and as a photographer I have a better time
watching the images go through and seeing what I really really like and what I
don’t and how that compares to the judges. I think when I first started
watching, everything looked beautiful and powerful and inspiring and while
there are so so many incredible images still, my experience even from the past
year alone has changed the way I look at the stills and stories that pass
by. 

I really
enjoyed the sports sections and find it interesting how featury even the sports
action images tend to end up. The documentary section was valuable in just
seeing so many different packages of work and how sequencing and pacing and
framing was done - good and bad. 

It always
fascinates me to see the differences in the documentary stories. Some entries
are no doubt without question centered on the push-button topic of the year or
the most recent or most horrifying disaster that has struck. Yet others are the
simple yet beautiful picture stories about everyday people living everyday
lives. I at some point was around for a discussion with the judges (when
exactly I honestly have no idea) when they were considering the difference
between push-bottom and top-name issues stories compared to the everyday story.
I think in comparing the story on the genocide in Burma with the
‘where I’m from story’ that included the controversial snow photo. Both were
beautifully shot but there seemed to be a draw to the Burmese story. Why? The
judges couldn’t say whether it was because of superior storytelling and
photographic quality or because of the nameliness and intensity of the subject
versus a quiet and less talked about topic. They went back and forth about
which it was and to be honest I don’t think that they really universally
reached a consensus as a group nor did some of them really have an answer for
sure in their own heads.

This was one of the discussions that really
stood out in my mind from the week because it is something I toy with in my
head fairly often. I know that I need to start shooting more topics heavy
pieces and that part of picking stories is picking the stories that matter
most. But I naturally gravitate towards the everyday mans story. I like to see
what normal people are doing in their very normal lives and maybe there is a
twist of maybe not but I really enjoy working on everyday workers and people and
their stories. Because of this tie and the just the general depth of the
discussion I really remember this conversation a lot.

I also can say on the note of the judges
being well spoken and having strong discussion, I really thought that this year
more than any other year the judges were both exceptionally well spoken and very
articulate, but also the most willing and enthusiastic about talking to
students and visitors. I wasn’t able to be around for much of the multimedia judging
but the still judges were hands down some of my favorite to work for thus far
this year and so I really appreciated that and was excited by their energy.