Amid the warren of tunnels and pipes beneath the Wisconsin Union, Miss Liberty is being groomed for her return Sunday.
After some years suffering the trials of arson, a tornado and hostile legislation in the state Senate, a reincarnation of a uniquely Madison icon will rise from the frozen waters of Lake Mendota: a Styrofoam recreation of the Statue of Liberty's crown and torch.
The Hoofers, the University of Wisconsin-Madison's outdoor recreation club, has been toiling since the end of December to resurrect the massive structure that was the brainchild of an absurdist student political movement of the late 1970s.
Last seen in 1980, the 40-foot-high torch and 38-foot-wide crown will be assembled mid-day Sunday, part of the publicity for next weekend's campus Winter Carnival.
"We're going to finish under the cover of darkness and it'll be there when everyone wakes up Monday morning," said Hoofers president Erik Rasmussen.
Wasting away in a pole barn for much of the last decade, the torch had to be remade, and the crown needed touching up.
Rasmussen and a group of other Hoofers, most in second grade or younger during the structure's last appearance, have mustered the enthusiasm of homecoming float-builders in the refurbishing drive.
Interviewed while covered with dust and caulk in the Memorial Union, the plotters who kept the torch alive this time gave deference to the statue's originators.
"It started off at first being this groovy thing; now, with us, it's a sense of mission," said Dov Jelen, 21, an art student from Chicago.
In April 1978, Leon Varjian and James Mallon, members of the Pail and Shovel Party, took control of the UW-Madison student senate and exectuive offices with campaign promises that included a pledge to transport the Statue of Liberty from Ellis Island to Lake Mendota.
In February 1979, at a cost of about $4,000, the statue was completed.
Just 10 days after its erection, the paper-mache statue was torched by an arsonist. Hundreds of mourners gathered to eulogize the structure and vow its return.
It did return the next year, fire-proofed and scandalized.
Student government politicos tried to impeach Mallon and Varjian. State Sen. David Berger, D-Milwaukee, incensed by the statue's cost, pushed legislation that would have hindered the student government's ability to make such expenditures.
But the replica of the statue that marked the gateway to the United States for thousands of immigrants was a hit in Madison. Masses huddled on the teeming shores of Lake Mendota to have their picture taken with the oddity, and one of the pictures became a best-selling postcard.
Miss Liberty disappeared in March 1980 in compliance with state regulations on removing ice-fishing shanties.
In the 15 years following, the statue was moved from barn to barn. In 1984, stored in the Barneveld barn of UW-Madison art professor William Weege, the statue was savaged by a tornado.
Two months ago, Rasmussen was contacted by an anonymous donor, who helped secure almost $2,000 for the statue's return.
Using 25 sheets of plywood and more than 300 pounds of plaster, the reconstruction is almost complete.
This time the statue will be occupied by volunteers at all times to thwart vandals, said Rasmussen.
"Everyone who volunteered to be a guard has ulterior motives. It will be guarded by potheads and deviants," said Rasmussen.
Probably the most spectacular viewing of Miss Liberty will come Feb. 10, when the Hoofers' Winter Carnival will provide a backdrop of fireworks over the ice.
(Copyright ©1996 The Capital Times; reprinted with permission)
Lady Liberty undergoes a trial run on the Union Theater stage 1/11/96
The saga continues...