The 2026 butter cow and its butter calf, which this year is wearing an Uncle Sam hat, are joined by a butter Statue of Liberty and more to mark America’s 250th birthday.
That light yellow mini Lady Liberty flanks the cattle on the right end of the annual exhibit, encased in a cooler inside the newly-renovated Dairy Products Building at the Ohio State Fair. A bald eagle, branching out its butter wings, sits on the other end.
But this year, the hardest elements to make, Cincinnati-based sculptor Paul Brooke said, were the butter American and Ohio flags that dangle in the center. Each weighs 200-plus pounds.
“Butter flags are something we haven’t tried before,” said Brooke, who has been an Ohio State Fair butter cow sculptor for close to 30 years. “We were just worried that they would stand the whole fair, not fall down.”
Over the course of the last week, he and four other artists clocked eight hour days, he said in an interview, molding the 2,100-plus pounds of churned cream—which was nearing its best-by date, anyway.
And they do it all under a shroud of secrecy. The butter cow theme is always hush-hush, even for the governor.
“This thing is more secret than the Academy Awards, I’m telling you,” Gov. Mike DeWine told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “They’ve got Brinks trucks out there holding the documents.”
But just after noon Tuesday, the secret was out, met with cheers from about 100 attendees there for the reveal. Before that, the DeWines had cut a ribbon outside the Dairy Products Building.
The building was one among several getting major renovations. This year, fairgoers will also be met with two new buildings, the Ohio Showcase Building and the Ohio Agriculture Center.
“About $460 million was allocated to this project, and we’re right here on the tail end,” said Alicia Shoults, deputy director of operations and experience for Ohio Expo Center and State Fairgrounds. “We’re also evaluating whether or not there are contingency funds that might be available and the best ways to use those.”
Even with fencing lining sections of the fairgrounds last year, Shoults said last week the 2025 Ohio State Fair fared just fine. Data showed attendance down about 2% in 2025, with a total of about 969,000 visitors, lower than its record of about 1,006,200 visitors in 2023.
The Ohio State Fair runs 12 days, through August 9, and tickets start online at $9.
