RALEIGH – Gregory Grainger of Brunswick County said he plans to buy a house and save for retirement with the $255,979 he won playing the Carolina Cash 5 game.

Grainger, a manufacturing worker, said he bought three Quick Pick tickets for the May 13 drawing when he stopped at the Food Lion on Village Road in Leland on his way home from work. He said he learned of his good luck while visiting his fiancé. He said his fiancé was holding the ticket while he read the winning numbers out of his local newspaper, The Star-News.

“She said, ‘Read them to me again,’” Grainger recalled as he collected his winnings Friday at lottery headquarters in Raleigh. “Then she put the ticket down beside me. I was speechless after that.”

After taxes were withheld, Grainger received a check for $174,066.

Since the lottery began through June 30, 2011, Brunswick County education programs have received more than $15.8 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.

To date, the N.C. Education Lottery has raised more than $2.35 billion for these initiatives statewide.