Topeka ? Bison have won the race for the Kansas state quarter design.

And Gov. Kathleen Sebelius pledges the buffalo that graces the prototype will have cosmetic surgery to correct its horns, which face forward instead of straight up.

“There is some controversy about the horns,” Sebelius said. “We’ll resolve that before the coin is authentically minted.”

The results, announced Thursday at a meeting of the State Board of Canvassers, showed the buffalo design received 36 percent of the 48,080 votes cast by high school students last week.

It defeated a design with the “Ad Astra” statue, which received 33 percent; a sunflower with two wheat stalks, which received 25 percent; and a plain sunflower design, which received 6 percent. The designs were picked as finalists from about 1,500 designs initially submitted by students across the state.

Sebelius said the U.S. Mint would work to correct the buffalo’s horns, which the Journal-World reported last week aren’t anatomically correct.

“They’ll redraw it again to make sure all the features are correct,” she said. “The question is whether they’re tilted a little.”

Dave Carter, executive director of the National Bison Assn. near Denver, said he, too, hoped the horns were corrected.

“They are pointing a little bit forward,” he said. “It looks a little like the toro bull getting ready to go into bullfight. But don’t get us wrong: We are tickled. It’s nice to have a buffalo on the back of a coin.”

Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, left, uncovers the state's official quarter for Shawnee Heights High School student Michael Mannell, center, and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. High school students around the state selected the coin featuring the buffalo for Kansas' commemorative quarter. Results of last week's voting were announced Thursday in Topeka.

Sebelius, too, said she supported the design, which also was the most popular coin among student voters at the two high schools in Lawrence.

“It’s a great symbol of our state,” she said. “The bison were here a long time on the plains long before we came here.”

Each state will have its own commemorative quarter in the national program, which began in 1999 and runs through 2008. Quarters are released in order of statehood.

Kansas is one of five states to have a quarter released next year. The Mint has said it would release the Kansas quarter in August.

The Associated Press contributed information to this report.

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