RALEIGH – A Stokes County woman who stopped at a convenience store for a $2 bottle of ketchup wound up winning $100,000 on a $5 scratch-off ticket. Cheryl Higgins won the top prize playing Ultimate Fan, an N.C. Education Lottery scratch-off game officially licensed by NASCAR®.

As Higgins checked out at Oakley’s Convenience Mart on Meadowbrook Drive in King, she said she chose to buy the ticket because she is a NASCAR® fan. As she began to scratch it, Higgins said she was disappointed not to see the number of her favorite driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who races in the No. 88 car. But after revealing the winning prize amount, she couldn’t believe the number she did see: $100,000.

Higgins, a home healthcare technician who works with children with disabilities, said that her prize money would help her take care of her family, pay off bills, get another car, and do some home improvements. After state and federal taxes were withheld, Higgins received a check for $68,001.

“I’m a single mom,” she said. “I do have two adult children but I got a grandbaby, too … So it just came at the best time it could come.”

Three top prizes of $100,000 remain unclaimed in the game. Non-winning Ultimate Fan tickets can be entered online into three second chance drawings for an opportunity to win unique racing-themed vacation packages. The entry deadline for the first drawing is 11:59 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 29, with the drawing to be held March 7. Two winners in each of the drawings will choose from three $20,000 ultimate fan experiences. Players can visit the lottery’s official website for more information.

Through June 30 of last year, Stokes County education programs received more than $10.3 million in lottery funds. By law, those funds pay for teachers’ salaries in grades K-3, school construction, need-based college scholarships and prekindergarten programs for at-risk four-year-olds. To date, the N.C. Education Lottery has raised more than $2.2 billion for these initiatives statewide.