THE BALLOON MAN

Munson: Lyon's butter cow legacy will live on at fair

Norma "Duffy" Lyon stands next to a life-size dairy cow she sculpted from butter in 2003 at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa.

Written byKYLE MUNSON

Jul. 2, 2011

Toledo, Ia. — The abiding image of Norma "Duffy" Lyon is her smiling face posed alongside one of the iconic butter cows she sculpted for 46 years at the Iowa State Fair, her hands smeared with the gooey, edible substance of her agricultural art.Lyon herself became an icon, the fair's beloved "butter-cow lady."

Her unique renown was reaffirmed last week in the wake of her death June 26 from a stroke. She was 81 and had been the fair's butter sculptor from 1960 through 2005.

Condolences poured in, including from President Barack Obama, who praised Lyon's sculptures as "a symbol of all the cherished traditions of the place she called home." Extended obituaries were published and broadcast from coast to coast.

Norma “Duffy” Lyon of Toledo, Ia., stands alongside her first work of any size: A snow sculpture of a horse and sleigh that she built in front of her Alpha Delta Pi sorority house at Iowa State University in Ames. / Special to the Register

But Lyon's husband of 61 years, Joe, still likes to picture his late wife before all the butter accolades, when they were fellow ag students at Iowa State University in Ames.
It was the young couple's first date in the summer of 1949. Main Street Toledo was swarmed with cars on this particular Saturday night. The novelty of a black-and-white TV set switched on and displayed in a storefront window tended to attract onlookers. And Saturday was "shopping night," Joe explained.real all of the story at:http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110703/OPINION01/107030340/-1/GALLERY_ARRAY/Munson-Lyon-s-butter-cow-legacy-will-live-fair