Ed's very first newspaper story about Ed carving dead trees on 520, Department of Transportation is unhappy as well as Mai Tiki

Carver's Motive? To Get A-Head

By George Korda — TODAY Staff Writer — Saturday, April 7, 1979

Ed Volonnino is a man of many heads — and he wanted to leave them on SR 520.

The only problem is that somebody else got there first.

The 20-year-old Cocoa Beach man carves tiki heads for a living. He doesn't carve on live heads, however. Volonnino works better with dead palm trees.

Tuesday afternoon, bucket of tools and stepladder in hand, Volonnino hitchhiked from Cocoa Beach to Merritt Island where he proceeded to redesign the trunk of a palm tree in front of the Bob Lancaster Insurance Office on SR 520. He carved two faces into the dead tree and signed his name.

"It's what I do for a living," said Volonnino as he whacked away on the lifeless tree. "I just think it's time to go out and start doing sculpture wherever I can."

At the time, Volonnino said he didn't know whether it was legal for him to perform his own form of plastic surgery on the tree. Jack Sellers, maintenance engineer for the Department of Transportation, said that another man, Wayne Coombs of the Mai Tiki Gallery in Cocoa Beach, had already requested permission to carve tikis in palm trees. But the answer hadn't come back from the district office.

"I recommended it," Sellers said. "The palm trees are dead and they're just something we'd have to dig up and haul off. He wanted to do it free of charge. I thought it would be something nice."

As for Volonnino's foray into tiki carving along roadways, Sellers said, "As long as they're dead ones I'm not gonna get up real tight about it, but I wished he'd of asked permission like the other fella."

Coombs, who had been patiently waiting for permission to start carving, was unhappy.

"I'm annoyed to the max," Coombs said. "Several people have been getting in on the art — they see a good thing and want to get in," Coombs said. "I took the legal route. All I wanted was the cost factor involved to make sure no one would steal it."

By Friday, however, the plot had thickened. On Tuesday Coombs, unhappy over the turn of events, called Sellers. Sellers in turn called the district office and found out that permission had been granted for Coombs to carve the trees.

"You can't give permission for two people to do the same thing. If I see that guy (Volonnino) or my people see him we're going to stop him. Just Mr. Coombs will be doing it," said Sellers.

Coombs, naturally, was elated.

"I've had permission for a few days," he said. "I've had the letter in my greasy little palm since yesterday.

"I did one carving about a year and a half ago in front of Merritt Square. It stayed about eight months and got sawed down — somebody took it. Let's see them take the ones now, because there's
in them. There'll be no way to saw through them."

In order to get approval, Coombs said he had to relinquish all liabilities or costs that may be incurred through his carvings.

Volonnino, who has no telephone, could not be reached for comment Friday. But he said on Tuesday, "I thought doing them for free would be good for me and good for them. I talk to people who come by and maybe get a few orders out of it."

But since he's going to be stopped from carving on SR 520, Volonnino will probably be looking for other trees he can use to get a head.

ED VOLONNINO WANTS TO LEAVE HIS MARK ON BREVARD

... Carves a tiki out of a dead palm tree on SR 520

TODAY staff photo by Malcolm Denemark