Three-time contest winner sees art in junk

For the entire history of the Hillsborough County Recycled Yard Art contest, Bob Dickey has walked away with a top prize.

And he's already working on his entry for next year - even though the contest isn't until October.

"I usually don't start working on things so early," he says, "but I said, 'Shoot man! I won three in a row! I gotta get going!'."

If you plan to enter the 2011 contest, know that your competition will include a Tiffany lamp made from a machine pulley, softball bat, stainless steel mixing bowl and copper wire. (That's a secret; you didn't read it here.)The Yard Art contest encourages recycling and aims to get people thinking creatively about ways to repurpose junk. It's open only to Hillsborough County residents, and the prizes are generous: $100, $75 and $50 to first-, second- and third-place winners chosen by judges; $100 to the People's Choice - voted on by people visiting the Hillsborough County Fair; and $100 for one each elementary, middle and high school winner.

This year's contest was held Oct. 13 through 17. Many of the winning projects are on display at the Hillsborough Extension Service office, 5339 S. Country Road 579, Seffner.

That includes Bob's first-prize sculpture, "Hummingbird & Orchid," created from cast-off shovels. In the contest's first year, 2008, he won People's Choice, and tied for third place, with a contemporary-looking bowlegged duck made from shovels. Last year, he used truck and railroad parts, chains and, yes, some shovels, to create a blue-ribbon Prehistoric Dragon.

"I don't know that I have any talent," he says. "I can't dream up anything; I have to see it. My first one, I walked by a shovel several years ago and, as God is my witness, I saw a bird in that shovel. I thought, 'If I just cut that there, and bend that there ...' "If I don't see it, I can't make it."

Bob and his wife, Verna, are Master Gardeners and live in Brandon. He grew up just south of there, in Gibsonton; yes, a carnie family. As an adult, he operated his own ride, the Octopus. He also had a mobile barbecue kitchen - called Bob-a-q - that served the world's best cole slaw (or so he was told.)He taught tennis for Hillsborough County, organic gardening at the University of Tampa, and coached Providence Christian School's girls' basketball and softball teams for years.

With that resume, it suddenly doesn't seem so strange that one man can continually crush the competition with his recycled shovels.

If you think you've got the stuff to go up against Bob next year, keep a lookout for the 2011 rules to be posted at http://hillsborough.ifas.ufl.edu/HomeGardening/RYA.html.

The contest is by the Extension, the county Solid Waste Management Division and by the Hillsborough County Fair.