‘Pieowa’ showcases rural Iowa-ness

9/3/2025

Pie is a stand-in for Iowa itself in many ways in a feature-length documentary from director Beth M. Howard, an Iowa filmmaker who is now on a national tour with “Pieowa: A Piece Of America” 

The film shows one of the iconic Iowa restaurants that serves pie — The Canteen in Ottumwa — as well as, of course, the Iowa State Fair and RAGBRAI and other familiar reaches of life here.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand’s answers on favorite pies and other dessert talk, and his appearances in director Beth M. Howard’s new film alongside Iowans like Tom Arnold and Chuck Offenburger, show him to have a surprising connectivity with rural Iowa, a certain know-it-when-you-see-it Iowa-ness.

The audience at a packed mid-July showing of the film at the Varsity Theater in Des Moines cheered when Sand first appeared on screen in “Pieowa.” Not just polite clapping, but sustained applause as Sand came on the big screen with thoughts on pies and Iowa in Howard’s brilliantly developed and heartening film.

“You know what, he’s a really good human being, and it made me happy to know that people were supporting him,” Howard, a rural Iowan who produced and directed the film, said in an interview. “He likes pie, so he must be a good person, right?”

Sand, the state auditor, hatched a “PIE” program in 2019 to spotlight local government entities for public innovations and efficiencies — P-I-E. As part of awards’ presentations and recognitions, Sand often delivers actual pies to the innovators.

“He goes around all over the state delivering pies,” Howard said. “If that isn’t the best way to connect with people, I don’t know what is. He takes them into these little, tiny towns and offices and thanks them for the job well done. Pie takes you places that you wouldn’t normally go.”

Mississippi’s Republican state auditor liked the idea so much that he replicated Sand’s PIE program three years ago.

Sand makes several appearances in “Pieowa.”

“He’s not in the film for any political reason, no propaganda there on my part,” Howard said. “It’s just he had the PIE program. He could have been a Republican and had a PIE program, and I still would have had him in there.”

Howard, who lives on a farm outside of Donnellson, a small town near Fort Madison and Keokuk, said she is not endorsing a candidate in the governor’s race with the film.

Sand, who grew up in Decorah, does kind of nail his role, though.

Near the end of “Pieowa,” Sand advances the case that the State Pie of Iowa is strawberry rhubarb. Turns out, he knows fellow Iowans’ collective taste for pie.

“I 100% agree,” Howard said. “That would be my answer, too — 100%strawberry rhubarb. I know from my pie stand that strawberry rhubarb was definitely No. 1.”

Locally, the film’s run continues to be extended at The Varsity Theater in Des Moines. “Pieowa” also has earned spots at the famous Chinese Theater in Hollywood as part of the Silicon Beach Film Festival and at the San Antonio Film Festival. 

For more information on the film visit Howard’s website. ♦

Douglas Burns of Carroll is fourth-generation journalist and founder of Mercury Boost, a marketing and public relations company.