Missouri couple wins $588 million Powerball prize

DEARBORN, Mo. (AP) — Cindy Hill, a laid-off office man­ager who lives in a small town in Mis­souri, called her hus­band Thurs­day with urgent news that would change every­thing: “We won the lottery.”

“What?” he asked.

“We won the lot­tery,” she repeated. But Mark Hill, a 52-year-old mechanic who works at a meat pro­cess­ing plant, is the kind of per­son who care­fully checks the prices for every­thing he buys, and he needed proof. This is the “Show-Me State” after all.

He drove to his mother’s house, where his wife was wait­ing with their quick-pick ticket, and con­firmed for him­self that the num­bers matched those drawn for a record $588 mil­lion Power­ball jack­pot that they’ll share with an unknown win­ner who bought a ticket in Arizona.

Mis­souri lot­tery offi­cials offi­cially intro­duced the Hills as win­ners Fri­day in front of reporters and towns­peo­ple gath­ered at the high school in Dear­born, which is about 40 miles north of Kansas City. The announce­ment was not a sur­prise. The Hills’ name began cir­cu­lat­ing Thurs­day, soon after lot­tery offi­cials said a win­ning ticket had been sold at a Trex Mart gas sta­tion and con­ve­nience store on the edge of town.

The Hills chose to take their win­nings in a lump sum, not annual pay­ments. Lot­tery offi­cials esti­mated the cash pay­ment at about $385 mil­lion, or about $192.5 mil­lion for each ticket.

The over­sized nov­elty check handed to the Hills on Fri­day was writ­ten in the amount of $293,750,000, but Mis­souri Lot­tery spokes­woman Susan Goedde said that after taxes, they will receive about $136.5 million.

“We’re still stunned by what’s hap­pened,” said Cindy Hill, 51, who was laid off in June 2010. “It’s surreal.”

The cou­ple have three grown sons and a 6-year-old daugh­ter they adopted from China five years ago. They said they are now con­sid­er­ing a sec­ond adop­tion with their win­nings, and they plan to help other rel­a­tives, includ­ing their grand­chil­dren and nieces and nephews, pay for col­lege. They’re plan­ning vaca­tions, and their daugh­ter, Jaiden, wants a pony. Mark Hill has his eye on a red Camaro.

More imme­di­ately, they’re prepar­ing for “a pretty good Christ­mas” and antic­i­pat­ing an onslaught of requests for finan­cial help.

“When it’s that big of a Power­ball, you’re going to get peo­ple com­ing out of the wood­work, some of them might not be too sane,” Cindy Hill said. “We have to pro­tect our fam­ily and grandkids.”

The jack­pot was the second-largest in U.S. his­tory and set off a nation­wide buy­ing frenzy, with tick­ets at one point sell­ing at nearly 130,000 per minute. The other win­ning ticket was sold at 4 Sons Food Store in Foun­tain Hills near Phoenix. No one has come for­ward with it yet, lot­tery offi­cials said.

Before Wednesday’s draw­ing, the jack­pot had rolled over 16 con­sec­u­tive times with­out some­one hit­ting the jackpot.

Myron Ander­son, pas­tor of the Bap­tist Church in nearby Cam­den Point, said he heard Thurs­day that the Hills had won the huge prize. Ander­son said he has known Mark Hill since they attended high school together.

“He’s a really nice guy, and I know his wife, and they have this nice lit­tle adopted daugh­ter that they went out of their way to adopt,” Ander­son said. Funeral ser­vices for Hill’s father were at the Bap­tist church, but the fam­ily attends church else­where, he said.

“I hope it’s good news for them,” Ander­son said. “I’ve heard awful hor­ror sto­ries about peo­ple who get all that money in their lap and how every­body treats them, and if you don’t mind me say­ing, I mean just the fact that the press is going to be after them.”

Kevin Bryan, a life­long Dear­born res­i­dent, said the only other local lot­tery win­ner he could remem­ber was a farmer who won about $100,000 in scratch-off game years ago “and bought him­self a combine.”

In a Mega Mil­lions draw­ing in March, three ticket buy­ers shared a $656 mil­lion jack­pot, the largest lot­tery pay­out of all time.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Nov 30 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.