COLUMBUS – This cow did not jump over the moon. She landed on it.
The 2019 butter cow sculpture at the Ohio State Fair, which opens Wednesday, honors the Apollo 11 lunar mission and Ohioan Neil Armstrong, the first person to step on the moon’s surface on July 20, 1969.
Sculptors worked for 500 hours to create the display, most of the time in a 46-degree cooler, said Jenny Hubble, the association’s senior vice president of communications.
The display’s sculptures, made from more than 2,200 pounds of butter, include a life-size sculpture of Armstrong, a native of Wapakoneta, standing next to the lunar module Eagle and saluting the American flag after planting it on the moon’s surface.
The display also includes a butter sculpture of the entire spacecraft crew: Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins and the traditional butter cow and calf, fixtures at the fair since 1903.
This is the fourth time the American Dairy Association Mideast has dedicated its display to Ohio’s contributions to the space program and the second depicting Armstrong, who was also saluted in 1982.