{"id":165141,"date":"2025-08-22T00:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T00:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/165141\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T00:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T00:34:10","slug":"princess-kay-of-the-milky-way-gets-sculpted-in-butter-at-minnesota-state-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/165141\/","title":{"rendered":"Princess Kay of the Milky Way gets sculpted in butter at Minnesota State Fair"},"content":{"rendered":"

FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. (AP) \u2014 It was a warm summer day but Malorie Thorson was dressed for winter as Gerry Kulzer sculpted a likeness of her head from a large block of butter Thursday in keeping with a 60-year-old tradition on the opening day of the Minnesota State Fair.<\/p>\n

Thorson, a 20-year-old from the town of Waverly, was crowned as the 72nd Princess Kay of the Milky Way<\/a> on Wednesday night. And her first official duty as the goodwill ambassador for the state\u2019s 1,800 dairy farm families was to bundle up and sit in a rotating glassed-in studio at 40 degrees F (4 Celsius) as fairgoers gathered to watch Kulzer turn a 90-pound (41-kilogram) block of salted butter into art. <\/p>\n

Other state fairs also feature butter sculptures. The Iowa State Fair has been famous for its life-sized Butter Cow<\/a> for over a century. A replica will be displayed at the Smithsonian Institution\u2019s Renwick Gallery in Washington starting Saturday. The 2025 New York State Fair butter sculpture, unveiled Tuesday, is a 900-pound (410-kilogram) nod<\/a> to the 125th anniversary of \u201cThe Wonderful Wizard of Oz\u201d by New York state native L. Frank Baum.<\/p>\n

But in Minnesota, all 10 of the dairy princess finalists<\/a> get a likeness of their heads carved before an ever-changing live audience. Each one gets to take their sculpture home after the fair, along with a bucket of the scraps. They can deep-freeze their heads as souvenirs or share them with family and friends, maybe spreading some of the butter onto corn on the cob.<\/p>\n

Wearing her tiara on her head, her sash over her overcoat and her gloves folded on her lap, Thorson said she loved the break from the nearly 80 degree (27 Celsius) heat outside. <\/p>\n

But she added it was an \u201cunreal experience\u201d to find herself at the center of attention because her mother had been taking her to the fair and its dairy stands<\/a> since she was at least 3. She said her mother had been a Princess Kay finalist in 1996.<\/p>\n

Thorson expressed confidence that Kulzer would do her justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have so much faith in him. I usually don\u2019t have as much faith in a lot of people because I like to be in control sometimes,\u201d the South Dakota State University student said. \u201cSo it\u2019s really nice to just sit back, relax and know that he\u2019s going to do a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Kulzer\u2019s fourth year as the fair\u2019s official butter sculptor. The artist, who usually sculpts with clay, said butter is different, that it\u2019s harder, more like carving stone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe temperature makes a huge difference,\u201d he said during a warm-up break. \u201cIf you are working at a 50-degree temperature, it\u2019s just like clay. In the 40 degrees here, it\u2019s just like from your refrigerator. So you cut a knife into your stick of butter, it\u2019s like it\u2019s hard and flaky.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Kulzer said his state fair gig is \u201csuper fun\u201d even though it\u2019s a little hard working in the cold.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy fingers get a little stiff, and so I\u2019ve got two layers on my hands. But you can\u2019t layer up too much because you still need the dexterity to carve,\u201d he said. \u201cMy fingers were cramping up because they were getting cold, so you take a break when you need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski reported from Minneapolis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. (AP) \u2014 It was a warm summer day but Malorie Thorson was dressed for winter…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":165142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[84,22016,3385,57,95102,1165,95103,3663,3669,15228,159,28642,783,95104,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-165141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-district-of-columbia","9":"tag-fairs-and-festivals","10":"tag-food-and-beverage-manufacturing","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-gerry-kulzer","13":"tag-lifestyle","14":"tag-malorie-thorson","15":"tag-minnesota","16":"tag-mn-state-wire","17":"tag-oddities","18":"tag-science","19":"tag-smithsonian-institution","20":"tag-space","21":"tag-steve-karnowski","22":"tag-u-s-news","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115069613909469653","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}