Dad gives daughter the gift of a lifetime

The biggest winner news of the week is that we met our state's first-ever top prize winner in the Lucky for Life game. Manalle Earnhardt of Salisbury will get $1,000 a Day - $365,000 a year, every year - for the rest of her life. And she plans to keep working as a nurse at the VA Medical Center in Salisbury.

“I didn’t serve in the service, so this is my way of giving back to the veterans,” she said. Earnhardt said her dad buys lottery tickets for her and her brother on a regular basis, but she never expected to win. Her winning ticket matched all six numbers in the Oct. 20 drawing. Lucky for Life drawings are held Mondays and Thursdays.

Just south of Asheville in the small mountain town of Fletcher, a maintenance worker won a big lottery prize. Christopher Gueho won $750,000 on a Jumbo Bucks ticket. He wanted to keep it in a safe place until he could claim his prize money. “At first I thought I’d store it in the spare room at my mom’s home,” Gueho said. “Then I thought maybe the freezer, because no one would look behind the pork chops for a lottery ticket.” In the end, he stored it in a paint sprayer until he brought it to lottery headquarters.

A trip to the grocery store to get something for dinner turned into a $100,000 lottery win for Michelle Walker of Apex. While shopping at the Food Lion on Williams Street in Apex, Walker bought a $4,000,000 Platinum Payout ticket. She scratched it off in the store and realized she won $100,000. “I started screaming, ‘What, What?’” Walker recalled. “I went around the store with my hands in the air.”

Our first winner of $75,000 in the Loteria game is Walter Marshall of Raeford. With his win, three top prizes are still in the game.

Two winners of $50,000 in recent Powerball drawings have collected their winnings. Jerry Barnes of Roanoke Rapids won in the Oct. 26 drawing and John Oaks of Burlington won in the Oct. 29 drawing.

Seven prizes of $10,000 were won instantly:

- Kenneth Akers of Fayetteville ($10,000 Platinum Payout)
- Lucky Edgin of Monroe ($4,000,000 Platinum Payout)
- John Matthews of Fayetteville and Gary Strickland of Autryville (Holiday Riches)
- Carrington Nelson of Asheboro (Millionaire Bucks)
- Frances Owensby of Marion ($4,000,000 Platinum Payout)
- Jesus Tapia of Raleigh ($1,000,000 Bonus Cash)
- James Zielinski of Lenoir (Ruby Red 7's)

Twenty prizes of $5,000 were awarded. Three of the winners are from Charlotte, two are from Greensboro, and two more are from Laurinburg. The other 13 prizes went to players from: Catalia, Conover, Durham, Fayetteville, Jacksonville, Kings Mountain, Pikeville, Pink Hill, Raleigh, Shelby, Smithfield, Trinity, and Wake Forest.

Thanks for reading the blog and hope you have a great week - maybe even a lucky one.