For the 64th year of Oktoberfest, 6 and 4 party on the fest button

Plenty of people in La Crosse begin thinking about Oktoberfest around the first week of June. And lots of them attended the Forks and Corks dinner Thursday night at the Cargill Room. That event which benefits the La Crosse Festivals scholarship fund traditionally includes the unveiling of the newest Oktoberfest button.

For the 64th year of the fest, the button brings the numbers 6 and 4 to life, with the 6 drawn as a lady in a dirndl, and the 4 is a fellow in lederhosen. They’re hoisting mugs full of beer. The design idea comes from Minnesota artist James Whitaker, who learned about Oktoberfest from friends.

“We’d been planning to come down (to Oktoberfest) for a few years,” said Whitaker, “but this year, our good friends from La Crosse told us about the button design contest, and I heard about and why I decided to enter.”

Whitaker says he’s been a designer for 20 years. How did he decide to make the numbers active characters on the button?

“I like to do, like, anthropomorphic sort of characters,” said Whitaker. “I thought having to include the 6 and 4, might be fun to make them the actual characters.”

Oktoberfest in La Crosse runs four days this year, from Thursday, September 25th through Sunday the 28th.