Jere and Kate Huffman, the owners of What Cheer Potters, have been working together as potters and as a husband and wife team since 1972. Jere and Kate attended Luther College in the mid to late 60s and learned about the many techniques and processes of making pottery. With an intention to build a kiln, they traveled to a small town in southern Iowa that was said to have an abandoned sewer pipe factory with many beehive kilns, which had lots of fire brick for their needs. With great diligence, they started mining out the brick and stacking them in large piles to build a grand kiln. Without realizing it, they were building the foundation for their pottery.

Kate & Jere moved to What Cheer in 1972, and have been “in process” of making pottery there ever since.