An Elizabethtown man has won the largest lottery prize in Bladen County history. Wesley Skinner, who works as a warehouse manager in Dublin, was ecstatic as he claimed his $300,632 jackpot with his wife Jeanette at headquarters.

“I hardly ever get Cash 5 tickets,” Skinner said. “But my wife told me the jackpot was close to $300,000.” Skinner purchased three Quick Pick tickets on Monday night, just hours before the nightly drawing. One of those tickets was the only one to match all five numbers in the drawing, winning the jackpot.

At work on Tuesday, Wesley had the jackpot-winning ticket in his pocket - but didn’t realize until Jeanette called him. She had heard on Fayetteville-based radio station Q98 that a winning lottery ticket had been sold at Champs Food Mart, where she knows her husband sometimes buys tickets. The store is located on N.C. 41 West in Bladenboro.

Skinner pulled up the lottery’s official website on his smart phone, saw the story about the winning ticket, and then checked his numbers. Upon realizing his ticket had hit the jackpot, he called his wife back with the good news.

“I had to leave work crying,” she recalled as the couple received paperwork explaining their after-tax winnings of $204,430. “We still have to work, but it’s going to make things a lot easier,” Jeanette added.

As the reality of their good luck began to sink in, the Skinners talked about what they might want to do with their prize money. “Maybe a cruise?” Jeanette said. “We’ve never been on a cruise.”

Leaving headquarters with their oversize lottery check and goodie bags, Wesley Skinner said he was still interested in hitting another jackpot. “We’re gonna play Powerball tonight,” he said. Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot is an estimated $124 million.

Prior to Skinner’s win, the largest in Bladen County history belonged to a Bladenboro woman who scratched off $100,000 on a Carolina Black instant ticket. Since the lottery began selling tickets through June 30 of this year, Bladen County players won more than $15.8 million in prizes and local retailers earned more than $2.1 million in commissions on ticket sales.

During the same time frame, Bladen County education programs received more than $9.2 million in lottery funds. By law, lottery money pays for teacher salaries, school construction, need-based college scholarships and for at-risk four year olds to attend prekindergarten.

To date, the N.C. Education Lottery has raised more than $2 billion for education programs statewide.