COLUMBUS, Ohio - As the Olympic Games get underway in Paris, Ohio’s dairy farmers are saluting the nation’s elite athletes as part of the 2024 butter cow display at the Ohio State Fair.

This year’s butter sculptures of a cow and calf are sporting medallions and stand next to life-size butter sculptures of four elite athletes: a track and field para athlete at the starting line, a gymnast doing a handstand on the balance beam, a cyclist rounding a curve and a high-jumper clearing the bar.

 

 The sculptures were crafted from 2,000 pounds of butter by a team of Ohio-based technical sculptors led by Paul Brooke of Cincinnati. His team consists of Tammy Buerk of West Chester, Erin Birum of Columbus, dairy farmer Matt Davidson of Sidney and Joe Metzler of Auburn. The team spent approximately 450 hours to complete the display, with 375 hours dedicated to sculpting inside the 46-degree cooler.

Sculptors layer butter onto steel and wooden frames and gradually refine their shape before chiseling in the fine details.

 

 “Every year we try to do something different we’ve never done before, and this year it was conveying the true-to-life motion of each athlete in action,” said lead sculptor Paul Brooke. “We had to get very creative with the armatures to support the massive weight of the butter. For example, there is a hidden armature to hold up the cyclist as he leans into a curve, and the high-jumper is actually hanging from the ceiling like Spider-Man, so he appears to be jumping over the bar.”

This isn’t the first time the annual butter display has honored athletes. The 2017 display featured high school athletes, the 2010 display recognized two NFL players football players from the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals, and the 1997 display included an Ohio State football player and cheerleader.

The butter cow display attracts more than 500,000 visitors at the Ohio State Fair, often gaining nationwide recognition and media attention.

The Ohio State Fair is scheduled to run from July 24 through Aug. 4, 2024, at the Ohio Expo Center.