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Shooting Victim Returns To Boyett's For Citrus Season

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By KYLE MARTIN, Hernando Today

Published: October 24, 2007

BROOKSVILLE - It's a new season at Boyett's Grove.

And Jim Oleson is glad he is alive to see it.

The co-owner of the roadside attraction on Spring Lake Highway has been home for six weeks after spending months in a hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest.

Oleson, 59, suffered the injury at the end of April in a violent robbery that shattered the tranquility enjoyed in this rural corner of Hernando County.

Some things changed while he was gone.

A central room was converted into an Old West saloon and a dinosaur exhibit was added in the rear of the tourist shop. The front door now bears a sign warning patrons that surveillance cameras are watching them.

But in many ways, the 40-year-old shop is the way Oleson left it.

The day after his homecoming, he insisted on visiting the store. The critters in his exotic zoo were thriving. Postcards and knickknacks lined the shelves. But it's what you can't see that keeps folks coming back to Boyett's.

Laid-Back Style Lures Customers

The first instinct after the shooting was to heighten security and keep close tabs on people visiting the shop, said Oleson's wife, Kathy.

But that's never been the attitude at Boyett's.

After much discussion, the Olesons agreed to continue their laid-back, come-and-go-as-you-please style. If a youngster accidentally breaks a jelly jar or someone slips a T-shirt in their purse, well, that's part of business.

'That's why so many thought Boyett's Grove belonged to them,' Kathy Oleson said, referring to the outpouring from the community that kept the store afloat when its doors were shut for months. 'That's why people enjoy it.'

Now that Jim Oleson is home, the couple will pick up where they left off. It couldn't have come at a better time, because this year's citrus crop in the 20-acre grove behind the store is ready for harvest.

Packaging fruit for Christmas is really what pays the bills and keeps the store going, Kathy Oleson explained.

Recovery Is A Long Process

Her husband is still too weak to be much help washing and waxing fruit, but he pitches in when he can. Oleson spent a few hours last week affixing price tags on jelly jars.

But most of his time is spent at their home down the hill from store, resting and healing. There is still a large hole in his chest that has to be tended twice a day.

Memories of the robbery surface occasionally, but Oleson tries not to dwell on them. On the afternoon of April 25, three men burst into the store, two of them wearing Halloween masks.

A patron of the store was robbed before the thieves moved over to the snack bar in the rear of the store. Oleson remembers them jerking his wife around by her hair and threatening to shoot her.

'I said, 'If anyone is going to get shot it will be me.' Then the robber turned and with no hesitation shot me in the chest,' Oleson said.

After that, he doesn't remember much. He spent two months in a hospital intensive care unit, much of that time in an induced coma. After he was released from St. Joseph's Hospital, Oleson spent a week in a rehabilitative hospital.

Asked what he missed the most while he was gone, Oleson was quick to answer 'work.' That earned a laugh from his wife, who playfully chided him. 'You notice he didn't say his family.'

When he first walked into the renovated Boyett's, 'it looked fantastic,' he said.

Shooting Investigation Open

A spokeswoman for the Hernando County Sheriff's Office said the case remains open and would not comment further. Oleson said the investigating detective told them the gun used in the shooting was matched to a separate incident in Orlando that happened a week after the Boyett's Grove robbery.

A person connected to the gun is in Orange County's custody for unrelated charges and has not been formally linked to the Boyett's shooting, Oleson said.

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