Happy couple Mia’lree Mays and Jamie Price of Rising Sun show off their big win. |
Cecil County players capture top prize
Great gifts really do come in small packages. A Cecil County stay-at-home mom remains dazed, dazzled and $150,000 richer because her longtime, live-in boyfriend added a Maryland Lottery scratch-off ticket to a small bag of goodies to cheer her up.
Jamie Price of Rising Sun stopped at a local gas station Saturday afternoon to buy a soda, bag of chips and a Maryland Lottery Diamond Dazzler Bingo scratch-off ticket for a very weary Mia’lree Mays. The couple had finished a long day of chores and Mia’lree, whose baby is due in July, was resting and watching “Shrek” with their 2-year-old son Jasion. She plays the Diamond Dazzler regularly but has only won $75 in the past.
Jamie began hovering when she saw she had won at least $75. By the time Mia’lree finished scratching off the ticket, she saw that she’d won the $150,000 top prize for the popular scratch-off ticket. Two $10,000 winning tickets are still in the stores, along with three $1,000 tickets. She remembers staring at the ticket, dazed and uncomprehending.
“He realized it first and he started shaking,” she said, smiling.
“I haven’t been able to stop shaking since Saturday night,” Jamie said. “This couldn’t have come at a better time.”
The couple kept the ticket hidden all weekend until Maryland Lottery headquarters in Baltimore opened on Tuesday. They told their families, but no one else.
“We rolled the ticket up in a pair of pants in the dresser,” Mia’lree said. “He kept waking up and checking it, like it was an infant.”
“I’ve been really nervous, like it wasn’t real,” Jamie said. “I was dead-bolting the door constantly.”
A steel welder and iron worker, Jamie, 24, has worked for Mia’lree’s father at North Bay Industrial Services for six years. He met Mia, 20, through her father. The couple plan to spend their winnings on a four-bedroom house, an evening at a nice hotel and on items for the July addition to their family, Iris’lynn Marie Price.
The lucky ticket was sold at the Sunoco A Plus at 355 Telegraph Road in Rising Sun.