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Caldwell Truck Driver Wins $150,000 Prize Monday, Comes After Winning $100K in NC Lottery in 2012

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Tony Summerlin with his adult son Dustin

March 18, 2014. Some might say Tony Summerlin has “the luck of the Irish.” After winning $100,000 in July of 2012, the Granite Falls man claimed a $150,000 prize on Monday. Summerlin won playing a $5 Green & Gold ticket.

“I reckon I found a pot o’ gold,” he said. “Works out pretty good doesn’t it?”

Sunday night, Summerlin bought two Green & Gold tickets at the Northside Superette on Pinewood Road in Granite Falls. In his truck outside the store, he started to scratch the first ticket.

“When I scratched the dollar sign I thought maybe I had won $5 or $10,” he recalled. “Then I saw the $150,000 and I said ‘No way. No way!’”

Summerlin, a truck driver and native of Caldwell County, said his first big win allowed him to pay off all his bills except his mortgage and buy his wife a new car for her birthday. With his second stroke of luck, one thing Summerlin plans to do with his after-tax winnings of $103,801 is buy a new set of wheels for himself.

“A Dodge Magnum,” he said. “But the main thing is just to take care of my family. I would rather them have than me.”

Green & Gold started Feb. 4 with five top prizes of $150,000. With Summerlin’s win, one top prize and many other prizes remain to be claimed.

Ticket sales have made it possible for the lottery to raise more than $3.19 billion for education programs statewide. For details on how more than $21.3 million in lottery funds have made a difference in Caldwell County, click on the “Where the Money Goes” tab on the lottery’s website.