RALEIGH – Luther Pinkerton, a retired furniture store owner from Hickory, plans to help his family and contribute to an orphanage in the Philippines with the $50,000 a year for life prize he won playing the $200,000 a Year for Life game.
“I got so excited, I could barely tell my wife how much we had won,” Pinkerton said. “It was like a dream and I didn’t want to wake up. This is just a blessing.”
Pinkerton verified his win at the Honey Pik Foods on Center Street in Hickory, where he made his winning purchase. The prize guarantees $1 million will be paid to Pinkerton or his estate over 20 years. It will continue to provide the annual $50,000 payments for each year of his life after that. He received his first check for $34,006, after taxes were withheld, on Tuesday afternoon.
Pinkerton said he planned to use his winnings to help some charities. Years ago, Pinkerton helped start an orphanage in the Philippines with a group of local businessmen.
“Just a few thousand dollars would fill this entire building full of rice over there,” Pinkerton said. “This will truly help a lot of children in that area.”
As he collected his winnings, Pinkerton spoke about the importance of the lottery to the state of North Carolina.
“To me it’s the most important part of buying tickets,” Pinkerton said. “Of course, it feels great to win, but even if you don’t win you’re still helping. Aside of food and shelter, education is the most important thing.”
Pinkerton won the game’s second-tier prize. The top prize in the game is $200,000 a year for life, with a minimum of $4 million. As of Tuesday afternoon, one top prize and three second-tier prizes remain in the game.
Since the lottery began through June 30 of this year, Catawba County education programs received more than $27.8 million in lottery funds. By law, those funds pay for teachers’ salaries, school construction, need-based college scholarships and at-risk prekindergarten programs.
To date, the N.C. Education Lottery has raised more than $2.1 billion for these initiatives statewide.