Of all the unusual requests Trent Johnson has received in 30 years of making hats, one presented a particularly difficult challenge: make a custom cowboy hat for the President of the United States, without being allowed to measure his head.
The opportunity came through Greeley Hat Works’ longstanding relationship with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. President George W. Bush was scheduled to speak at its national convention in Denver, and the association wanted to present its keynote speaker with a custom hat. Without measurements, Trent did what a hatmaker could do: he studied his customer. He watched Bush on television, looking beyond the speeches and paying attention to the shape and proportions of his head. Then he called longtime friend and customer Red Steagall, the Texas cowboy poet who knew Bush personally and, decades earlier, had been Trent’s father’s roommate. Steagall helped narrow in on Bush’s preferences for the crown and brim, and Trent took it from there.
Before the presentation, Trent was warned not to expect much. The president received gifts constantly. Bush would likely accept the box backstage, thank everyone graciously, close it, and hand it to a member of his entourage. Instead, Bush opened the box, put on the hat, and immediately began looking for First Lady Laura Bush. “Where’s Laura? Where’s Laura?” Trent remembers him asking, eager to show her his new hat.
Bush walked onto the convention stage wearing it. From his seat in the audience, Trent remembers the moment almost in slow motion: camera shutters firing as the president walked toward the podium in a hat made at Greeley Hat Works, tipped it back with his familiar ease, and addressed the crowd. Trent had been told he probably would not have an opportunity to meet Bush, either, but seated near the front beside W.D. Farr, he watched the president work his way through the room shaking hands and decided he could not let him walk past without saying something.
“Sir, it was an honor to make you that hat,” Trent told him.
Bush recognized him.
“You’re Trent!”
For a hatmaker who had never even been allowed to measure the man, those two words were enough. Someone retrieved the hat from backstage, Bush put it back on, and the two posed together for a photograph. It could easily have been the end of a story Trent would tell for the rest of his life. Instead, Bush left Denver aboard Air Force One for Salt Lake City and the 2002 Winter Olympics, and somewhere during the flight, took the time to write Trent a personal thank-you note.
Then the hat began appearing in places Trent never expected to see his work. His friend Harold Richter of Richter Scale Productions was working at the Olympics and found himself watching Bush appear with the Olympic torch behind him, wearing the Greeley Hat Works hat. A hat shaped in a Greeley shop had suddenly become part of moments unfolding on a much larger stage.
The next invitation brought Trent even closer to it. He traveled to Washington with representatives from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and was invited into the Oval Office to personally present another hat to President Bush. Even waiting to enter felt surreal. Trent remembers looking into a nearby meeting room and seeing Condoleezza Rice conducting a meeting. Then he walked into the office he had seen countless times on television, this time to give the president another hat.
For that presentation, Trent wanted every detail to feel worthy of the occasion. He pushed the craftsman who made his hat carriers to create a carrier unlike anything they had done before: military blue on the outside, gray flocking inside, and the presidential seal embossed into the carrier. The hat itself was equally personal. Instead of the typical single-color interior stamp, Trent created a two-color George W. Bush logo, added a sterling silver buckle with a 14-karat-gold “W,” and had Bush’s signature made into a die so it could be stamped inside the hat. Trent still has the die.
He also had a replica made so his children could take it to University High School for show-and-tell. Soon after that school visit, Trent received a phone call from the U.S. State Department. The caller wanted to confirm that he was the hatmaker who had recently presented the president with a hat and the distinctive carrier bearing the presidential seal. Then came the question Trent could not have anticipated: Did he have any more of those carriers? President Bush wanted Greeley Hat Works to create presidential gifts for special dignitaries.
The request took an already remarkable relationship somewhere else entirely. Trent was now making hats President Bush would give to other world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Vice President of Sudan, and the President of Guatemala. For one of those commissions, information came through President Bush’s staff, and Trent remembers being told that if he had additional questions, he could reach out to Moscow. The hatmaker in Greeley, Colorado, suddenly had Moscow as a possible follow-up call.
The presidential commissions eventually ended, but Bush remained a customer. Trent says he has made eight hats for him over the years, and one of the quieter stories from much later may say more about their relationship than any photograph from Washington.
A man once came into Greeley Hat Works with an old hat he hoped Trent could restore. The hat was too far gone, and Trent told him candidly that the work would not be worthwhile. The customer looked at him and replied, “George was right. You’re as honest as the day is long.”
Trent had no idea what he meant.
The man explained that he had been checking cattle when Bush rode up with his daughters. Bush complimented his hat, and during their conversation told him about his own hatmaker in Greeley. He should go see Trent.
Years after the convention in Denver, the Olympic appearance, Air Force One, the Oval Office, and presidential gifts sent to international leaders, George W. Bush was still recommending the hatmaker who had once studied his head on television because he was not allowed to measure him.
The relationship lasted beyond those moments. Long after the cameras were gone, a customer remembered who made his hat, and sent someone else to Greeley.
“I still get goosebumps thinking about it. He [President George W. Bush] walked onto that stage wearing a hat made right here at Greeley Hat Works.” - Greeley Hat Works Owner, Trent Johnson