With a new president comes a new addition to the National Presidential Wax Museum in Keystone, S.D. President Barack Obama is will take his place in wax history sometime in May, according to manager Ty Gerbracht, who manages the wax museum along with the adjacent Holy Terror Mini-Golf and the Executive Order Grill.

“He’s definitely going take his place – he’s been ordered,” she said. “We couldn’t even think of ordering at least until after the election. Those figures are very expensive.”

Wax artist Henry Alvarez of Salem, Ore., is currently at work on the Obama figure. The wax museum opens April 1 – without Obama, she said. Gerbracht said the Obama figure will be posed behind a podium. Which to me seems appropriate: Obama is an orator or rare skill.

His predecessor, George W. Bush, was initially posed in a debate with a wax Al Gore. (Smart move on the wax museum’s part: While the two sides sparred over hanging chads and other election issues in 2000, the museum could place its wax figure orders. They’d have a wax winner regardless of the outcome.)

By the way, the musuem later replaced its debating Bush with a 9-11 Bush. There’s now a figure of President Bush standing amid the wreckage of New York’s Twin Towers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Retired New York Firefighter Bob Beckwith, who was in the famous 9-11 photo with the president — and commorated in wax — attended the unveiling at the National Presidential Wax Museum.

By the way, if you’ve never been there, the National Presidential Wax Museum is kind of an interesting Black Hills attraction. Each president is placed in a well-known setting. FDR is seated with Stalin and Churchill at Yalta. JFK is seated at his Oval Office desk with son John-John playing underneath.

These pieces truly are the work of an artist. The president’s head is sculpted by hand from clay. Using liquid plastic and plaster, a cast is made of the sculpted head. The cast is filled with hot wax, which cools faster near the plaster surface than in the middle. Once a 2-inch layer of wax is formed on the outside, the remaining liquid wax is poured out. (Yes, wax presidents’ heads are hollow.)

After that, the head is painted, glass eyes are added, and porcelain teeth plugged into the mouth. Using a heat lamp and a barbed needle, the artist plants tiny hair plugs into the wax scalp. The hands are cast from a real hands, and the body is made of papier-mâché.

Gerbracht  hopes Obama is a two-term president — but not for political reasons. The National Presidential Wax Museum is getting pretty crowded, she said, and it will take some doing to find a space for the next president. Eight years will give her time to figure out how.