LANSING, November 10, 1998 – The 14 members of a Jackson lottery club are celebrating in a big way – they’re the latest winners of a top Michigan lottery prize!
The IST Lucky 14 Lottery Club matched the first five numbers drawn in the October 27 Big Game drawing, collecting the game’s $150,000 prize. That day’s winning numbers were 12, 13, 17, 25, 43 and the Big Money Ball number was 22.
Club members, who work together at Industrial Steel Treating in Jackson, include:
- Terry Behling of Jackson
- Philip Burgette of Concord
- Kurt Carlson of Jackson
- Larry Decker of Hanover
- Bill Howard of Michigan Center
- John Johnson of Jackson
- Mike Johnson of Jackson
- Floyd Payne of Albion
- Trudy Potter of Jackson
- Richard Rice of Jackson
- Richard Shafor of Pleasant Lake
- Michael Trupiano of Jackson
- Ed Waldron of Clark Lake
- Vernon Wellman of Jackson
The club members range from 24 to 55 years of age and are a mixture of married and single individuals.
"My wife saw the drawing on television while I was working," Mike Johnson said. "She called me one minute after the drawing had ended to tell me that we had won. I went screaming through the plant and told everyone!"
"We were all very surprised and ecstatic that we won," Trudy Potter, the club’s representative, said.
"Mike called me at home to tell me we had won and I couldn’t sleep at all after that," John Johnson said. "I knew we were going to win! I could just feel it!"
Prior to turning the winning ticket in at the Lottery’s headquarters in Lansing, the group locked the ticket in one of their desks at work for safekeeping. The club members’ plans for their winnings include traveling to Las Vegas and Atlantic City, buying a new car, home repairs and purchasing a new snowmobile, just to name a few. Their winning "easy pick" ticket was purchased at Meijer Inc. #35, 14640 Pardee Road, in Taylor.
The club offered the following advice for other hopeful Lottery players: "Hang in there – it will come!"
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