Would you choose the rooster? The bobcat? How about the prize-winning pig? You could even stick with a classic carousel horse.
There’s not really a wrong choice. Every animal on the new Ohio Children’s Carousel is beautifully carved and painted.
The Ohio State Fair opened on Wednesday with the brand new, Ohio-made carousel as a focal point in the ‘historic district’ of the fairgrounds.
The carousel animal’s brightly colored saddles and bridles are dotted with surprising details like flowers and state insignias. Every creature has a unique expression and its own personality. It’s hard to pick a favorite.
“Mine is the llama. That is by far my favorite animal, but it's kind of hard," said rider Vaneeda Keowmang-Goings. "It's like picking children, you know?”
The Goings family owns Carousels and Carvings, the Marion company that built the new attraction from the ground up.
Keowmang-Goings and her husband, Kyle Goings, were on the ride’s inaugural spin. They sat in the Woodlands Creature Chariot, an unpainted wheelchair-accessible stall. Raccoons, dragon flies, frogs and birds peek out from the carved leaf canopy that makes up the bench’s back and sides.
“We are going to paint it next year, but we think people won't let us because they all really enjoy that it is in bare wood at the moment,” Keowmang-Goings said.
Governor Mike DeWine declined to give a precise cost for the carousel, but the new attraction is part of around $460 million in updates, improvements and new construction on the state fairgrounds that began in 2023.
Each of the more than two dozen animals on the ride took somewhere between 400 and 600 hours to carve, paint and varnish. Still, the Carousels and Carvings team got it done in about two years.
The ride’s first official whirl happened on Saturday, July 25 — 155 years to the day since the first very first patent for a carousel was filed in 1871.
The ride was christened with ample fanfare. The All-Ohio State Fair Youth Choir performed before Governor DeWine and First Lady Fran highlighted some of the carousel’s features.
Governor DeWine pointed out the bison, which was native to Ohio before it was hunted to extinction in the state in 1803. Bison can now be found in Jessie Owens State Park in Morgan County and Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park in Galloway.
Two other animals that nearly faced extinction in the state but have been restored, the trumpeter swan and the bald eagle, also appear on the ride. The state bird of Ohio, the cardinal, is featured not once, but twice.
“What I insisted on is you can't just have a male cardinal. We have a female cardinal too,” Fran DeWine said.
Ohioans could find most of the carousel’s animals at the fair or in the state’s forests and rivers. Others, not so much.
One pale off-white bovine stands out among the ride’s more colorful critters. It’s a wooden rendition of the fair’s famous butter cow.
Then there’s ‘Dunk,’ or dunkleosteus terrelli, the state’s official fossil fish.
“Some people said it's too ferocious looking for kids,” Fran DeWine said. “Well, my kids think it's great, so they like the ferociousness of it.”
Murals on the carousel’s upper rounding board and inner panels depict Ohio scenes and famous places.
“You'll see a picture of State Fair many, many years ago. The Wright brothers flying over Huffman Prairie in Greene County, where they actually perfected flying,” Governor DeWine said.
Hocking Hills State Park, Marblehead Lighthouse on Lake Erie and Columbus’ Palace Theater are among the other locations shown. The ride also includes the name of every Ohio county.
“Look, this is really a love letter to Ohio," DeWine said. "When people walk up, they're going to find something that they recognize there."
The DeWines enjoyed the carousel’s first go-around from a chariot bench that pays tribute to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library with images from the picture book, “The Little Engine That Could.” That chariot also includes the DeWine family's beloved Springer Spaniel, Dolly, perched attentively on a stack of books.
The carousel is housed in a grand pavilion with large glass garage doors that can be lowered to protect the ride from the weather. The carousel is expected to delight Ohioans young and old for decades, or even centuries.
Brothers Jake and Luke Brammel of Marion, ages 13 and 11, said they enjoyed their first spin on Saturday. They rode on the male cardinal and the deer. Their grandfather was part of the ride’s build team.
“I think it's really cool that I get to come and ride something my grandpa made,” Jake Brammel said.
Kyle Goings said carousels have the power to connect families.
Carousels are often a person’s first ride. They’re put on a horse or river otter or monarch butterfly by their parents. Years later, the same people put their children or grandchildren on for another ride.
“I think it’s that generational connection through the years of riding a carousel that's unique that a lot other rides don't necessarily have,” Goings said.
Plus, carousels are beautiful. They’re moving works of art that people can get up close and personal with. They transport you to a world of lights, colors, music, motion.
And after that voyage, they bring you right back around to where you began.