Dec. 6, 2012. Robin Stanfield of Mebane is the third and final $1 million winner from North Carolina from the historic Powerball drawing on Nov. 28. Stanfield was at work when she learned she had matched all five white balls in the drawing, beating odds of 1 in 5.1 million.
“I had heard that no one in North Carolina had won the jackpot,” Stanfield said. “I really didn’t think any more about it. Then a friend of mine texted me and said someone bought a winning ticket in Burlington. I got a co-worker to pull up the numbers on his smartphone and I called out my numbers to him. He thought it was a joke, but then I started shaking and getting excited. It was a lot of feelings all at once.”
Stanfield plans to use a portion of her winnings, worth $680,000 after taxes were withheld, to pay off her house, send her daughters to college, travel and give to her church. She purchased the winning ticket at the Super Kmart Express on Huffman Mill Road in Burlington.
“I still can’t believe it,” Stanfield said as she collected her winnings. “This is just surreal.”
Ticket sales for games such as Powerball have enabled the lottery to raise more than $2.58 billion for education initiatives statewide. Since the lottery began through June 30, 2012, Alamance County education programs received more than $33.3 million in lottery funds. By law, those funds pay for teachers’ salaries in grades K-3, school construction, prekindergarten programs for at-risk four-year-olds, and need-based college scholarships and financial aid.
The first $1 million Powerball prize from the Nov. 28 drawing was awarded last Thursday to Leslie Rouse and his adult son Christopher Rouse. Leslie, who lives in Kinston, and Christopher, who lives in Winterville, purchased their winning ticket at the Kangaroo Express on U.S. 258 in Kinston.
Clyde Tillman, the second winner to come forward, purchased his winning ticket at the Circle K on Selwyn Avenue in Charlotte. He collected his winnings at lottery headquarters in Raleigh on Friday, Nov. 30.
During the 16 Powerball drawings held as the jackpot rose from $40 million to $587.5 million, more than 625,000 tickets in North Carolina won prizes ranging from $4 to $1 million, totaling $7.4 million in overall prizes. Those sales also boosted the local economy as lottery retailers recorded $3.1 million in lottery commissions. Sales of Powerball tickets during the record jackpot run resulted in $44.3 million in sales for that game alone in North Carolina. From those sales, an estimated $16.8 million will go to education programs in North Carolina.
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