Golden Valley UPS Store Owner Returns Misplaced Package

GOLDEN VALLEY:- The owner of a UPS store in Minnesota spent four years searching for the intended recipient of a package filled with mementos before he found the man living in Georgia.

The package ended up at Randy Holst's UPS store in Golden Valley after several failed delivery attempts. He opened it to find a veteran's mementos, including a framed military flag.

When the Department of Veterans Affairs couldn't help, Holst took his search to the internet. Holst sent more than 40 Facebook messages to people with potential ties to the veteran before he reached the wife of a man named Tim Burchell on Facebook last month.

Burchell, who lives in St. Marys, Georgia, confirmed that the items belonged to his deceased father. A framed military flag, a funeral registry book and other precious memorabilia have finally made their way to a U.S. Navy veteran’s family in Georgia after about four years of sleuthing by a Minnesota UPS Store owner.

The package wound up in Randy Holst’s store after repeated attempts to deliver it failed.

It had been sitting in Holst’s store for about two years when he finally decided to open it. When he saw what was inside, Holst put in a call to the U.S. Veterans Administration to locate relatives of Carl Barnett Burchell, whose name was on the items. Burchell had died of cancer in 1988.

Holst hit a dead end with the VA. So he began sending messages on Facebook to people with similar names.

In early January, his efforts paid off, and he located Carl Burchell’s survivors in St. Marys, Georgia. “You wouldn’t toss a memory like that,” Holst told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I can’t imagine anyone would.”