Brittany Hitchcock of Lenoir used family birthdays and anniversaries to choose her Powerball numbers Wednesday night and they paid off with a $150,000 prize.

“I’ve been playing those same numbers for years,” she said.

Hitchcock bought her lucky $3 ticket from Gamewell Superette on Morganton Boulevard in Lenoir. She matched the numbers on four white balls and the red Powerball to win $50,000. Because she bought a Power Play ticket, her prize tripled to $150,000 when the 3X multiplier hit.

“It was surreal,” she recalled. “It actually still feels surreal.”

Hitchcock said she told her three girls as soon as she won.

“They were all like, ‘No way,’” she laughed.

She arrived at lottery headquarters on Thursday to claim her winnings and, after required federal and state tax withholdings, took home $107,251.

Hitchcock plans to use her winnings to help pay for a cruise to the Bahamas with her family.

Saturday’s Powerball jackpot stands at a $54 million annuity or $25.6 million in cash. The odds of winning a Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292 million.

Powerball is one of six draw games in North Carolina where players have the option of buying their tickets at a retail location or with Online Play through the lottery’s website or the NC Lottery Official Mobile App.

A $15 million grant, using money raised by the lottery, helped Caldwell County build the new Granite Falls Middle School. For details on other ways Caldwell County benefits from lottery funds, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.