First Place Winner for Most Original Sculpture

1st place winner for most original sculpture:— 2007 Minnesota Celebrity Butter Carving Contest:

Every year I participate in a week’s worth of events at the Minnesota State Fair, and granted, the Fair is not until August, BUT I figured this year I should get a jump start honing my skills so I can shoot for the Gold in the AGRI-OLYMPICS.

It started several years ago when I was a sidekick on KS95’s morning show. My two partners at the time, Rob and Mark, thought it would be fun to nominate me to participate in the Celebrity Cow Milking Contest. "Yeah, let’s get Princess Melinda to walk through the fair in her fancy shoes and see if she can Milk a Cow in front of a live audience."

"No problem, GUYS. I am up for the challenge," I thought to myself, "but first I am going to require some practice." So I went into the Moo Booth and asked a very cute dairy farmer if he would help me learn how to milk a cow.

Two hours, people! I spent two hours with my new best friend (Steve) from Albert Lea, learning the proper techniques to milk a cow.

Lights, TV cameras, and a few drunks in the audience all focused on me for one whole minute (on the official clock), and my lessons paid off. I filled that bucket almost right up to the top, even though my cow decided to use my pretty shoes as the perfect spot to relieve herself.

Unbelievable! All the D-LIST celebrities took their turns, one by one, squeezing their cows to get more milk in their buckets, but nobody was going to beat me.

All of us Media types got so competitive, that Rusty Gatenby and Joe Schmidt actually starting using their cow’s teats as weapons
against each other.

Had everyone stopped yanking and squeezing the teats so hard and taken the time to learn the proper way to milk a cow (making an OK sign with one hand and massaging the milk down), perhaps they, too, would have had a shot.

Long story short… For six years straight I was the crowned champion
of the Celebrity Cow Milking Contest.

Last year, though, I was off my game and came in third, so I did what any person would do to regain the admiration and respect of my peers: I entered the 2007 Celebrity Butter Carving Contest, using my good buddy TONE FLY as my inspiration.

Let’s see… How do I carve a work of art — a portrait of T, as I call him — with a plastic knife?

After studying his bald head and facial features, I had the perfect idea.
I went to Walgreens and picked up a Mr. Potato Head kit, grabbed a pair of my diamond hoop earrings, cut off a chunk of hair from my Hair Extensions, threw in one of my old sets of fake lashes,
found a little airplane from one of my son’s old boxes of junk, and created the 1st place award-winning butter sculpture of 2007.

Well, actually, I got first place in the most original category.
The real winner was Princess Kay of the Milky Way, whose creation got a standing ovation.

For the next three months I will be working on butter sculpting techniques in hopes that I can both redeem myself in the Cow Milking Contest and sculpt something that will earn me the title of not just "Most Original Butter Sculpture" but also "Hardest Working
D-list Celebrity in the 2008 Minnesota State Fair Agri-Olympics."