On Saturday, 12 September, a small but determined group of MU students and faculty drove down to St. James, Mo., the site of last year’s Missouri Photo Workshop, to enter a float into the Grape and Fall Festival Parade.

Our float was a mock-up of St. James: The people of Missouri’s ‘Forest City of the Ozarks’, a book of St. James residents’ stories told by MPW participants and MU students, which was edited by Josh Bickel, who received his M.A. in photojournalism this past May.

Many late nights the week before–printing, spray-painting, loading lumber and bikes into cars–culminated in a first place award for a float entered by an organization, and the sale of close to 100 books that afternoon…while Calin Ilea, Jakob Berr and I went fishing at Meramec Spring!  (A well-deserved break, I might add.)  Here, then, are 20 images that tell the story of the day: