(21 Aug 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Falcon Heights, Minnesota – 21 August 2025
1. Crowds at Minnesota State Fair
2. Minnesota State Fair grandstand
3. Various sculptor Gerry Kulzer carving diary princess Malorie Thorson in butter
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Gerry Kulzer, butter sculptor: ++COVERED++
“These are 90-pound blocks of butter, 90 pounds. And I get to carve them into the likeness of Princess Kay of the Milky Way.”
5. Kulzer carving Thorson in butter
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Gerry Kulzer, butter sculptor: ++PARTIALLY COVERED++
“I love the fact that I grew up on a farm, and they’re growing up on a farm, and we compare notes. It’s so fun to hear their stories.”
7. Various Kulzer carving Thorson in butter UPSOUND (English) Gerry Kulzer, butter sculptor:
“Right now, I’m using Linda Christensen’s knife, so your mom was in the butter booth, this same butter booth with this same knife when she was carved.”
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Malorie Thorson, 72nd Princess Kay of the Milky Way: ++PARTIALLY COVERED++
“My mom has been taking me to the state fair for, since I was three, at least. And she’s always taking me to the dairy goodness bar in the butter booth, and I’ve been admiring from afar for so many years and so it’s an unreal experience that I’m able to be in this butter booth and also just be Princess Kay and advocate for the dedicated dairy farmers across the state of Minnesota.”
9. Various Kulzer carving Thorson in butter
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Gerry Kulzer, butter sculptor: ++PARTIALLY COVERED++
“Iowa and these other places, they start with an armature and layer the butter on top. That’s what we do when we’re making something for bronze sculpture. This is more like a carving stone like Michelangelo did. And they’re both valid, but this is the only fair that you’re going to see someone live sculpting from a solid block of butter.”
11. Various fairgoers watching carving
STORYLINE:
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.
Thorson, a 20-year-old from the town of Waverly, was crowned as the 72nd Princess Kay of the Milky Way on Wednesday night. And her first official duty as the goodwill ambassador for the state’s 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.
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.
But she added it was an “unreal experience” to find herself at the center of attention because her mother had been taking her to the fair and its dairy stands since she was at least 3. She said her mother had been a Princess Kay finalist in 1996.
“Right now, I’m using Linda Christensen’s knife,” Kulzer told Thorson, referencing the fair’s previous butter sculptor of fifty years. “So your mom was in the butter booth, this same butter booth with this same knife when she was carved.”
But in Minnesota, all 10 of the dairy princess finalists 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.
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/4becb80201dd4866a84b38c617232dd6
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in August 27, 2025, 12:05 am.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
