Music thief mystery unraveled at BCHS History Mystery event

Jan. 2—The mystery of the stolen music was finally cracked.

Held at the Beltrami County History Center, community members put their detective hats on to solve a fictitious crime involving suspects from area history for the ninth annual History Mystery event on Thursday, Dec. 28.

Bemidji's History Mystery, a fun family-oriented event put on by the Beltrami County Historical Society, is an interactive game with a regional history lesson tucked inside. Live actors from the community portray real people from local history.

This year, seven favorite local actors returned to portray musicians from the Bemidji area as they kicked off the event.

With around 40 participants this year, it didn't take long to find out who stole the music, but they also learned a little bit more about some of the prominent historical figures who helped to make Beltrami County what it is today.

As the anxious attendees gathered in the main museum gallery, Beltrami County Historical Society Director Emily Thabes read the backstory and clarified the rules of the game.

"This is a process of elimination. Inside your clue books, there's a list of suspects," Thabes announced to the group. "We brought all these musicians here and we were going to start the music, but we don't have it — that's because somebody stole it."

One of the actors, Michael Meuers, portrayed a musician and railroad engineer by the name of Isaiah "Spike" Jones. He said one of these six suspects stole his music and he needed the community's help to find out who did it.

"I got railroaded! Someone took my music," he shouted. "I'm very angry about it and whoever did it must be crazy. I hope you can help me find it."

The first suspect was Rosemary Given Amble played by Vicki Stenerson. Rosemary was a teacher, nurse, civic leader, and bugler and trumpet player for the Bemidji Community Band. She also served with the Bemidji City Council for 18 years. Music was a very important part of Rosemary's life as she played for the American Legion Kiddies Drum and Bugle Corps in 1939 and in Kern's Kernals dance band in 1944.

"My music was mostly for myself for a while because I got into politics and that kind of takes up most of your time," Rosemary said to the crowd. "And as a politician, I would never do something so nefarious like that."

Another suspect was played by Terry Holter, portraying Everett Wilimek. Wilimek started two bands in Denver and once played with the Lawrence Welk orchestra. After moving to Bemidji, he continued to play violin for the rest of his life and was one of Vera Naylor's "Rails."

Ernie Rall portrayed legendary band leader G. Oliver Riggs, who lived in Bemidji for only a few years but started the boys' juvenile band in 1919. He also directed the community band and started bands in Guthrie and Red Lake before moving to St. Cloud to become the city band leader there in 1923.

Other suspects were Vera Naylor played by Allison Cease and Luella Tangborn Hoff played by Kay Murphy. Naylor was a talented accompanist, church musician and leader of "Vera and the Two Rails," and Tangborn Hoff was a talented musician, who played clarinet with the Rudolph Brune Dance Orchestra of Nary and gave lessons around town.

And finally, the last suspect was Warren Wilcox Koxvold, played by Kevin Cease.

Warren played the tuba, piano, guitar and the accordion. He grew up and graduated from Clearbrook High School and followed his passion for music to Minneapolis with the WCCO staff orchestra. After serving in World War II, he moved back to the Bemidji area and opened Warren's Accordion and Guitar Studio along with playing all around town in the 60s and 70s.

"As you could probably tell, I am a very busy guy. When would a busy guy like me have time to steal anything? I would only steal your hearts — with my songs," Warren sang to the crowd as he played his accordion.

After each of the seven actors took a turn giving some background on the historical musician they portrayed, then they were ready to begin their hunt for the thief as the train whistle blew and the game was afoot.

The participants went around to the suspects asking questions, taking notes and piecing together who the thief was. When mostly everyone was finished, Thabes gathered everyone back into the center of the room for the unveiling.

"The music that was stolen was jazz music," she announced. "And our suspect who stole everything was Warren Wilcox Koxvold."

The audience and other suspects gasped and shouted at him as he jumped up to try and explain himself.

"When I went to music school they took all of my jazz music away from me and I was stuck playing this stupid accordion all the time," Warren shouted. "I love jazz, of course I took the jazz music!"