{"id":378815,"date":"2026-04-14T10:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T10:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/378815\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T10:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T10:41:08","slug":"minnesota-butter-sculptor-enshrines-pope-in-the-dairy-staple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/378815\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota butter sculptor enshrines pope in the dairy staple"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t193<\/p>\n

MINNEAPOLIS (OSV News) \u2014 What\u2019s more Minnesotan than having your likeness sculpted in butter?<\/p>\n

Since 2020, Gerry Kulzer has created the butter sculptures of the Minnesota State Fair dairy princesses that Minnesotans are so familiar with. Hundreds of people line up to watch him create his masterpieces live during the fair.<\/p>\n

Although he probably will never see it, Pope Leo XIV\u2019s likeness has been enshrined in the dairy staple. Kulzer spent the first day of the National Catholic Educational Association Convention<\/a>, which was held at the Minneapolis Convention Center April 7-9, sculpting a bust of the pontiff live among the event\u2019s exhibitors.<\/p>\n

NCEA\u2019s commission request<\/p>\n

\u201cI get some pretty random commission requests, but when the National Catholic Educational Association contacted me about doing a live butter sculpture during their conference this year, I was interested,\u201d Kulzer told The Central Minnesota Catholic, the news outlet of the Diocese of St. Cloud.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter working out the logistics of keeping the butter cool, they decided they wanted a bust of Pope Leo and another butter block carved into their logo,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Participants from Minnesota were eager to see the sculpting in real time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was awesome to have the artist known for carving the butter sculptures at the state fair at our conference,\u201d said Sara Michaelson, superintendent of schools for the Diocese of St. Cloud. \u201cWho knew we needed a butter sculpture of Pope Leo?\u201d<\/p>\n

Spending time with Catholic educators<\/p>\n

Aside from being able to bring a very Minnesota feel to this year\u2019s conference, Kulzer, who is a teacher himself, was happy to spend time with Catholic educators<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a former Catholic school teacher, Catholic education is close to my heart,\u201d he said. \u201cI loved being able to share artwork and my faith with my students at Holy Trinity in Winsted. It was similar at the conference. It was so fun to be surrounded by fellow educators who also were Catholic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kulzer has been an art and industrial tech teacher for more than 30 years and currently teaches 7-12 grade art classes at Eden Valley-Watkins schools. He fell in love with ceramics while attending the University of Minnesota Duluth, so he\u2019s been sculpting clay even longer than he\u2019s been teaching.<\/p>\n

Public school students and their faith<\/p>\n

Kulzer, who is a member of St. Philip Church in Litchfield, which is part of the Shepherd of Souls Faith Community in the Diocese of New Ulm, said he appreciates that his students are not afraid to talk about their faith in class, even in a public school.<\/p>\n

\u201cAssumption Church (in Eden Valley) has daily Mass at 7 a.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays and I always see students at Mass,\u201d he said. \u201cI counted 16 students one Friday morning!\u201d<\/p>\n

As a fellow sculptor and a fair-goer, Kulzer watched Linda Christensen carve Princess Kay busts at the Minnesota State Fair in the \u201990s. He contacted Midwest Dairy, hoping they would consider him to replace her when she retired.<\/p>\n

Princess Kay of the Milky Way<\/p>\n

The coronation of Princess Kay of the Milky Way<\/a>, chosen from several finalists, has been a tradition at the Minnesota State Fair every yearsince the 1960s. Crowned on the eve of the fair, theprincess acts as a dairy goodwill ambassador.<\/p>\n

In 2018, he auditioned for the position. \u201cI was given a 90-pound block of butter and some pictures of one of the Midwest Dairy princesses,\u201d he recalled. The next year he was asked to apprentice under Christensen.<\/p>\n

He was offered the job and in 2020 the plan was to work with Christensen, with Kulzer .\u00a0 doing a couple of the princesses\u2019 likenesses while she did the others. But then came the COVID pandemic and she couldn\u2019t get to Minnesota from her home in California. So he had to do them all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Promoting dairy farmers\u2019 labor<\/p>\n

Kulzer said he hopes people know that one of the reasons they do the butter sculpting at the fair is to promote the work of dairy farmers in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that my work in butter brings recognition to the hard work that farmers do to produce such yummy foods like butter, cheese and ice cream,\u201d he said. \u201cI grew up on a farm and know that central Minnesota is filled with dairy farms. I always feel honored to be able to do a little something to bring more recognition to the work they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he was happy to bring his skills to the NCEA convention.<\/p>\n

Dianne Towalski is social media manager at The Central Minnesota Catholic, magazine of the Diocese of St. Cloud. This story was originally published by The Central Minnesota Catholic and distributed through a partnership with OSV News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"193 MINNEAPOLIS (OSV News) \u2014 What\u2019s more Minnesotan than having your likeness sculpted in butter? Since 2020, Gerry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-378815","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}