RALEIGH – “We will never forget this day as long as we live,” said Roger Rigney as he watched his wife Pamela collect a $100,000 Carolina Black prize.

Roger Rigney an air conditioner repairman from Greensboro and Pamela, a homemaker, sat together at their kitchen table when they realized they had won the $5 game’s top prize.

“I had purchased five tickets already and hadn’t won anything,” Roger Rigney said. “Something told me to go back into the store to buy two more. I’m so glad I did. The first one Pam scratched was worth $20 and then the next one was the big one.”

“I was so excited and completely in disbelief,” said Pamela Rigney. “At first we thought we had won a hundred dollars, but then we saw those zeroes. It still doesn’t seem real. Pinch me. I know this is a dream.”

The Rigneys plan to use their winnings, worth $68,001 after taxes were withheld, to help their family, take a Las Vegas vacation and save for the future. They purchased the winning ticket at the Circle K on Pinecroft Road in Greensboro.

“It’s really true,” Pamela Rigney said when she held her check for the first time.

As of Friday morning, three $100,000 top prizes remain to be claimed in the Carolina Black game.

Since the lottery began through June 30, 2011, Guilford County education programs received more than $102.1 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 $2.45 billion for these initiatives statewide.