Meet the butter cow queen of the Iowa State Fair

Editor's note: The Register spent some time with Iowa State Fair butter sculptor Sarah Pratt on Friday, Aug. 5, as she prepared for Thursday's opening day of the fair.

T-minus six days until the gates swing open for the Iowa State Fair and Sarah Pratt puts some final touches on the face of the iconic butter cow, a tradition still going strong after 105 years. The hooves still need some detail work and she needs to finish the tail.

Five-gallon buckets of butter await in a cooler while giant blocks that just arrived need to be cut and kneaded to release water and make her medium more pliable.

But by the time Aug. 11 rolls around, Pratt will finalize her 11th version of Summer, the butter cow, as the official butter sculptor of the Iowa State Fair.

Pratt took over the sculpting duties in 2006 after 45-year veteran Norma “Duffy” Lyon retired. Pratt spent 15 years apprenticing under the first woman butter sculptor in the country, learning to use clay sculpting tools, even a dentist’s pick and mainly her own hands to take 1,000 pounds of butter and turn it into a cow.

Pratt looked at the photos that hang above her sculpture in the John Deere Agriculture Building and winced when she saw her first cow sculpture.

“I think about how different that first sculpture was,” she said as she took a break from the 40-degree cooler that houses the butter cow and its companion piece, a tribute to the 50th anniversary of “Star Trek.” “That was my least favorite sculpture that I did.”

Pratt, a former special education teacher, sketches out her sculptures in advance and welds together a metal and wire form on wood that gives her the basic structure of the piece. Already she completed a replica of the Starship Enterprise as well as Nyota Uhura and Spock, part of the butter cow companion exhibit. Capt. James T. Kirk’s metal frame already leans on his elbow in the commander’s seat and Dr. Leonard McCoy awaits his coating of butter.

Butter sculptures became all the rage at state fairs back in the early 1900s, a way to showcase the bounty of a state. Ohio first displayed a butter cow and calf in 1903, and the Iowa State Fair soon followed with a first in 1911 by John K. Daniels.

“It was a way of saying to people on the East Coast that we had so much that we could build a castle out of it,” Pratt said, referring to the corn palaces and butter cows of yore.

Pratt’s studio consists of the long, narrow room with windows looking out into the John Deere Agriculture Building, kept at a cool 40 degrees so the butter doesn’t melt. Her father, Tom Doyle, helps her with some of the console pieces in front of Uhura. The smell of blue cheese hangs in the air.

That butter she uses (and reuses) has been around since 2005, the last time she ordered a completely new batch. At first, it’s crumbly in texture, but as she continues to churn and knead it over the years it becomes more like clay.

“Every year I work it, it becomes creamier and easier to sculpt.”

Her mentor, Lyon, preferred unsalted butter, but Pratt likes salted to preserve the butter longer.

Pratt spends about 32 hours sculpting the entire project, and that doesn’t include drawing and welding time. Graph paper helps her keep Spock tall enough.

Pratt became such an expert at butter sculpting that now other states want her services. This year she helps out the Illinois State Fair in Springfield, Ill., which starts on the same day as the Iowa State Fair, and the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson, Kan., in early September. When asked how she would complete two butter cows in time for two fairs starting on the same day, Pratt said, “It will be done.”

This year, the Iowa State Fair sponsors a companion piece, as it has in years past, and Pratt says she had a hand in selecting “Star Trek” as the honoree.

“I make a Pinterest list. Everyone has their lists and I see where they cross,” she said.

She watched old episodes of “Star Trek,” the original show on television, and noticed that only four main characters appeared in every episode — Spock, Bones, Uhura and Kirk. Of course, the fictional character James T. Kirk will be born on March 22, 2228, in the future in Iowa, and Riverside, Ia., adopted Kirk as their own in 1985 with the blessing of creator Gene Roddenberry. Pratt naturally hopes that actor William Shatner, who played Kirk in the original television series, beams down to see his buttery likeness.

After the final fairgoer departs, Pratt takes the whole exhibit down with the help of her cousin, who turns up the heat a little to make it easier to remove the butter. All returns to those five-gallon buckets, kept in storage until next year.

While Pratt doesn’t make a habit of sculpting butter at home, she does keep about 20 pounds of it at home, just in case.

“I eat butter all the time.”

Sarah Pratt’s favorite foods at the Iowa State Fair

Iowa State Fair butter sculptor Sarah Pratt spends a lot of time at the fair and finds that one, two, even three days isn't enough to see everything. While she's there, usually with her family, she has to eat. Here's a look at seven of her favorite dishes at the Iowa State Fair, listed in no particular order:

1. Mini doughnuts. Her kids even have a song about the doughnuts that they sing as they’re driving to the fair. Pratt prefers JR Mini Donuts, but as long as they’re small, she’s happy.

2. Fried cheese curds.

3. Ice cream from The Dairy Barn. Pratt prefers strawberry and her kids enjoy cookie dough.

4. Guinea grinders from Aunt Mary’s Italian Grinders.

5. Crescenti’s Sandwiches, either with cream cheese and jam or ham and cheese.

6. A fried pickle.

7. Fried cauliflower.