Pa. Farm Show 2020 Butter Sculpture unveiled: Flyers mascot Gritty gets his moment

It’s that time of year again: The annual Pennsylvania Farm Show is almost upon us. And in a rite of winter as sure as a ball drop on New Year’s Eve, officials at the state Department of Agriculture unveiled the show’s Butter Sculpture.

The sculpture, which usually celebrates some facet of state culture and history, took a decidedly … Gritty turn this year.

Regard what you have wrought, Pennsylvania:

The people asked for Butter @GrittyNHL and today we delivered.

Behold. The 2020 #PAFarmShow butter sculpture.

Shoutout to special guests Swoop and Steely McBeam.

You can see the sculpture in all its glory at the Farm Show, open January 4-11: https://t.co/GKo9bFtkp0 pic.twitter.com/6GG8kkZYz7

— Pennsylvania (@PennsylvaniaGov) January 2, 2020

And, yep, that’s the Philadelphia Eagles’ Swoop and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Swoopy McBeam you see up there as well, rendering the sculpture almost entirely ecumenical in its rooting loyalties.

As PennLive reports: “The sculpture was created by artists Jim Victor and Marie Pelton of Conshohocken over a 14 day period. The duo are veteran butter sculptors, and have crafted the Farm Show’s butter sculptor since 2008. The work was created from 1,000 pounds of scrap butter, donated by Land O’Lakes in Carlisle. Following the end of the Farm Show, the butter from the sculpture will be recycled into energy via a methane digester at Reinford Farms in Juniata County.”

In a statement, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who oversaw the unveiling, said that “Every year, [the] Farm Show brings crowds to Harrisburg to celebrate things they love. This year, we hope to connect even more Pennsylvanians to our state fair and to agriculture by representing the faces of those they already love, from the west and east of Pennsylvania.”

The Farm Show runs from Jan. 4 to Jan 11. at the Pennsylvania Farm Show complex in Harrisburg.