Latest news with #Tweten
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Missing woman found safe through an anonymous tip shared to First Coast Crime Stoppers
First Coast Crime Stoppers said a tip to its hotline helped locate a woman who was reported missing in Jacksonville. The nonprofit announced its involvement in the case on its social media channels on Wednesday. Lia Tweten, 21, who is originally from Minnesota, disappeared on April 21. She was reported missing under suspicious circumstances. Her abrupt disappearance led to an immediate investigation by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO). [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] JSO released bulletins and photographs of Tweten to alert the public of her disappearance. According to Crime Stoppers, Tweten's life was believed to be in immediate danger. Crime Stoppers released a video explaining Tweten's disappearance and how their hotline helped recover her. You can watch the full video in the player above. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Yahoo
Jacksonville police searching for woman missing under ‘suspicious circumstances'
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office announced Thursday afternoon that it is searching for a missing woman. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< Officials said 21-year-old Lia Tweten's disappearance happened under 'suspicious circumstances,' and that she may be in the company of a 31-year-old man named Alejandro Diaz-Laugart. Family said she was last believed to be in Jacksonville between April 19th and April 22nd. They may have been driving Tweten's car, a 4-door 2017 red Mazda 6, with the following Minnesota tag: RHZ-491. If you have any information on where Tweten might be, you're asked to call JSO at its non-emergency number, 904-630-0500. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bemidji's iconic Gifts O' the Wild closes after death of 90-year-old owner
Feb. 8—NARY — If you haven't stopped at the iconic Gifts O' the Wild shop along U.S. Highway 71 south of Bemidji, you might have missed your chance. The business closed in November after its owner, Floyd Tweten, died at the age of 90. Tweten operated the store for 61 years, offering a variety of crafts, toys, jelly, wild rice and Native American items. Passersby could not miss the A-frame business with more than a dozen promotional wooden signs pointing the way. "It's the end of an era," said Ellen Rockensock, a longtime employee at Gifts O' the Wild. "It was the old-style Wall Drug atmosphere, I used to hear that from the customers a lot. They had come there 30 years ago as a kid and they'd bring their kids and grandkids. It was a tradition." Gail Bauman, who worked at the store for 38 years until it closed, echoed those sentiments. "I think it was pretty unique," Bauman said. "I think it's because it was pretty old-fashioned. Maybe it was nostalgia. Floyd would order the same things every year, stuff that you just don't find in the stores anymore. He always kept it really, really packed, so when people walked in it was like the 'wow' factor." Even the cash register had some nostalgia. "The old register we had was from 1890, and when that one went to heck we had one from like 1920," Bauman said. "They didn't work. We could open them and put the money in, but that's all that they would do." The future of the business is unclear. Tweten never married and had no siblings or other close relatives. Until his estate is settled, his 80-acre property, home and business are in limbo. Terry Tollefson, a part-time employee who also was Tweten's caregiver in his final years, said a liquidation sale could be planned for later this year, and it's also possible that a buyer could be found for the business. The property was home to the family of Tweten's mother, Olga Oase Tweten. Floyd was born on the Oase farm in 1934. His father, Nels, worked for the highway department, and the family lived in Ponemah and Kelliher while Floyd was growing up. He graduated from Kelliher High School and Bemidji State University and also attended the University of Minnesota. After Nels died in 1960, Floyd and his mother moved back to the Oase farm and soon opened Gifts O' the Wild, selling jellies and jams that Olga made. The first store opened in a small building that was moved onto the property. Then Floyd built the first part of the A-frame and expanded the business. He added on two more times, once to the east and once to the south, creating space to expand his offerings. "It was kind of a unique business because he built it so big," said Wayne Hoff, one of Floyd's second cousins. "There was a time when he was considering buying the Treasure City business in Royalton. He was thinking about buying that, and then instead he decided to build the one up here as big as Treasure City." While the building and its contents continued to expand, Tweten never added plumbing to the space. "The only thing that was sad is he never put a bathroom in," Bauman said with a slight chuckle. "We would tell people they could go out to the outhouse, but we'd get a few people who would say, 'No, I think I'll wait until the next gas station.' Floyd was very, very old-fashioned and very, very set in the '60s. He didn't grow with the times as far as modernizing. That was the charm of the place." Bauman said a salesman from Minnetonka Moccasins once told Tweten that his shop sold more of the product than any other outlet. "Maybe he just told us that," she said, "but we did sell a lot of moccasins." In the mid-to-late-1960s, Gifts O' the Wild and the neighboring Tangborn Rock Shop became tourist destinations, with friendly competition between them. "They would have charter buses coming in there," said Hoff, whose grandfather Vanner Tangborn started the rock shop in 1952 across Highway 71 from Tweten's shop. "It was all friendly. People just flocked there because they were interested in rocks. And Floyd's store kind of became an icon. The charter buses would stop at both places." Floyd Tweten's business might never reopen, but he and the one-of-a-kind gift shop will long be remembered. "It was Floyd's legacy," Bauman said. "It's important that people remember him and what he did."
