First-ever vacation now in the works for mother of two
A 40-year-old Wicomico County resident isn’t sure where the numbers originated from but they just kept coming to mind. Scratch-offs are her favorite games, she told Maryland Lottery officials, and she plays them every week rather than jackpot games involving numbers.
A brush with Lottery luck that led to a $50,000 Powerball prize just gave her 50,000 reasons to add the jackpot game to her list of favorites.
On Dec. 6, her objective in visiting Naylor Food Mart in Salisbury was to buy a scratch-off. However, there was a Powerball ticket in the nursing assistant’s pocket when she left.
“I had no intention of playing Powerball,” she reported. “But I’ve had these numbers bouncing around my head for the last week or so. I don’t know where they came from, though I think a couple were from a fortune cookie.”
That spur-of-the-moment decision to make use of those mysterious numbers on a Powerball ticket was a good one. Even more so was her inclusion of the game’s Double Play feature in her purchase, for it was during that bonus Powerball drawing that good fortune found her.
Choosing Double Play, which adds $1 to a Powerball purchase, enters the ticket into a second drawing with prizes from $7 up to $10 million.
“When I saw that someone in Salisbury had won $50,000 and then saw that my numbers matched, I was speechless,” the Eastern Shore mom said. “I was crying. I was shaking. When I called my mom to tell her, my sister had to take the phone. I just couldn’t calm down.”
Our Powerball winner plans to put most of her winnings in the bank for her children’s future. The Salisbury resident also will set some aside for a vacation, something that she’s never experienced. “I don’t know where I’m going yet, but it’ll be somewhere warm.”
Earning an assist in making this happy Powerball story happen, along with that fortune cookie, is the staff at Naylor Food Mart in Salisbury. Stop there if you notice numbers rattling around in your head. You’ll find them at 1101 North Salisbury Boulevard.
