A $200,000 prize will allow Leatha Davis of Fairmont to invest in her pet grooming business.

Davis purchased her winning $5 ticket from the Lumberton Corner Store on North Elm Street in Lumberton.

“I frequent this store and I usually get a drink, some cigarettes and I’ll pick a ticket,” she said. “I walked up and my eyes went straight to Ruby Mine.”

So, Davis purchased a Ruby Mine 9X ticket and a Mountain Dew and went back to her car. Sitting in the parking lot, she scratched her ticket.

“I said, ‘It can’t be,’” she recalled. “My son was with me and he got in the car and he’s like, ‘You gotta be kidding me. For real?’”

Davis claimed her prize Monday at lottery headquarters and, after required federal and state tax withholdings, took home $141,501.

“I’ve got big plans for it,” she said of the prize money. “It’s going to help me with my business that I just opened in March. I have a pet grooming shop. It’s going to mean a lot to me.”

Ruby Mine 9X launched in June with 4 top prizes of $200,000. One top prize remains to be won.

Ticket sales from scratch-offs like Ruby Mine 9X make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $900 million per year for education.

A $15 million grant, using money raised by the lottery, will help Robeson County to build the Robeson County Career and Technology Center that will support 1,200 students and provide space for training, meetings, classrooms and labs.

For details on other ways Robeson County benefits from lottery funds, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.