RALEIGH – Layheang Loch, a warehouse supervisor from Inman, South Carolina, plans to use the $1 million prize she won playing Powerball to pay off her mortgage, purchase a new car, help her sisters and save for the future.

Her ticket for the June 13 drawing matched all five white balls to win the prize. She purchased the winning ticket, worth $680,004 after taxes, at the Roadrunner Market on Dellwood Road in Waynesville. She stopped at the store to purchase tickets while traveling to the mountains.

“I remember telling the clerk that I was buying tickets for the big jackpot because I didn’t want to go to work the next day,” Loch said. “When I saw the numbers I couldn’t believe it. I was so excited. I started jumping up and down.”

Loch’s win represents the seventh Powerball ticket to match all five white balls for a $1 million or $2 million prize since the game was updated earlier this year. Before the game’s update in mid-January, the amount won for matching all five white balls but not the Powerball was $200,000. Today, a player who matches all five white balls wins $1 million instantly or $2 million if a $3 Power Play ticket is purchased.

As she received her winnings, Loch shared some advice to her fellow Powerball players.

“A lot of people say you can’t win,” she said. “Don’t give up hope. I almost did, but here I am. I’m so excited.”

Since the lottery began through June 30, 2011, Haywood County education programs received more than $8.8 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.

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