COLUMBUS – Trophies and trips to the White House are nice, but you really haven’t hit the big time until you’ve been immortalized in butter.
The Buckeyes’ College Football Playoff championship will be so honored at this year’s Ohio State Fair.
The 2015 Ohio State Fair: July 29-Aug. 9
The fair’s popular butter display commemorates the championship with a display that features the traditional butter cow and calf standing next to life-size sculptures of head coach Urban Meyer and Brutus Buckeye, along with larger-than-life carvings of the coveted national championship trophy and two Ohio State football helmets.
The butter display is in the Dairy Products Building, open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
The display was fashioned from a ton of butter over the course of 500 hours, most of which were spent inside the cooler where the cow and other figures will remain, which is kept at a refreshing 46 degrees, association officials said.
The sculptors begin by building wooden and steel frames to support the weight of the butter, which is delivered in 55-pound blocks and sliced into “manageable” loaves and layered on the frames.
The 2015 display was crafted by a group of four Ohio-based technical sculptors including lead sculptors Paul Brooke (above) and Alex Balz of Cincinnati, Tammy Buerk of West Chester and Erin Swearingen of Columbus.
According to the American Dairy Association Mideast, fairgoers will also have the opportunity to name this year’s butter cow and calf via Twitter by following @OHDairyFarmers and using the hashtag #ButterCowNameGame. The person who submits the most inventive name will be awarded a Go Pro HERO LCD camera at the conclusion of the fair.
The butter display annually attracts more than 500,000 visitors.