Michael Hazen and Red Drennen

The dome's original copper skin — installed with the statue back in 1902 — was seventy-eight years old and starting to fail. A workman suspended from the top of the dome inspected copper panels that had "been damaged by weather and birds crashing against them," under the headline "Closer look."

State officials had noticed what looked like a large hole and hired a South Dakota company, Elevated Tank Service, to send a crew up on ropes and pulleys to take a look. They found more than one hole: numerous small holes, scores of missing or loose screws, and torn or missing panels of the 24-gauge copper.

The repair rode along with roughly $8 million in state construction projects approved by the 1979 Legislature, with the Anaconda Company donating new copper to patch the worn and storm-damaged sections.

The hands-on work fell to two Helena men: steeplejacks Mike Hazen and Red Drennon — a photo caption from the same week misspells it "Grannon," but Drennon is correct. The Independent Record ran this photo of the two of them finishing the job under the headline "Shiny Dome," the new panels polished bright and not yet tarnished to match the old.

Hazen wasn't quite done with the dome. Around the January 1981 inauguration of Governor Ted Schwinden, he climbed back up and set a cardboard hat — 47 feet in circumference, labeled "TED" — on the statue's head. It stayed there about a day before someone took it down.

Talking to the Associated Press, Hazen said he and Drennon "hatched the idea as a tribute to the new state administration and the legislative session." State officials were not amused — Hazen said he was "chewed out" — but he didn't seem to mind: "We figured it would create some interest in state government, and it sure did."