The girl statue that was taken earlier this month was reunited with her bronze boyfriends at the Fifth Third Field sculpture Friday, complete with new security features.

Reported stolen Aug. 13 and found a short time later lying on the ground nearby, the bronze statue — a girl in pigtails and overalls — is back behind the Mud Hens scoreboard. It is incorporated into the fence surrounding the stadium on the St. Clair Street side with three other life-sized child figures. The fence is now bolted to one of the figures.

“I certainly think that it is more comfortable now,” Jason Griffin, director of public relations for the Mud Hens, said of the statue. “Thank goodness we have extra security in there to make sure it stays put.”

During the morning hours, two Toledo police officers discovered the statue about 20 yards from its original location. For safekeeping, they booked it into a property room, where Toledo police Detective Tonya Rider retrieved it after a police report was filed. Mud Hens employee Ken Westenkirchner filed the complaint after stadium employees noticed that evening that the statue was missing.

Alan Knaggs, a sculpture technician for Flatlanders Sculpture Supply & Art Galleries, of Blissfield, Mich., said the statue’s new security features include bolts that attach the girl figure to one of three boys in the sculpture. The two hollow figures are bolted together with a pin that attaches the girl’s left shoulder to the boy’s right lower back.

The bronze plates at the bottom of the girl statue were ripped in half when it was stolen, Mr. Knaggs said.

“We reinforced them with stainless steel. And we also threw in a pin that whips into the boy from around the other side, and we bolted it from the inside,” he said.

The bolts that anchored the statue to the sidewalk also had been damaged.

It was still unclear Friday how the heavy bronze statue was moved down the sidewalk. Detective Rider said she had no suspects.

Titled “Who’s Up? — Depicting a Knothole Gang,” the sculpture was created by artist Emanuel Enriquez of Bowling Green. It was dedicated Sept. 2, 2002.

It cost $89,000, according to Dan Hernandez, art in public places coordinator for the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo.

About $50,000 of that was donated by George Chapman, who is chairman, chief executive officer, and president of Health Care REIT. The rest was from the city of Toledo’s One Percent for Art program.

Contact Mike Sigov at: sigov@theblade.com or 419-724-6089

First Published August 27, 2011, 4:30 a.m.