For the last twenty years the North Carolina Education Lottery has had a close connection to schools in our state. That connection started when the first lottery ticket was scratched back in 2006 by Dr. Wendy Miller, a teacher who would later become a superintendent.
“It is kind of neat to think I was a part of history,” Miller said.
Miller, the Teacher of The Year in North Carolina at the time, received a last-minute phone call to be a part of the lottery’s launch.
“They called me at 5 a.m. and said, ‘Can you be in Raleigh in three hours?’” Miller recalled. “I am like, ‘Yeah if I hurry!’”
After making the drive up from Craven County, Miller was handed a scratch-off ticket and a quarter. While the first ticket was not a winner, she got another chance on a second ticket.
“I scratched again and won $20,” Miller said. “I think they put it in a museum for a while.”
Like the North Carolina Education Lottery, Miller made it her life’s mission to support the education of children in our state. She started as a teacher and eventually became the superintendent of Craven County Schools. Throughout her career, she witnessed the lottery’s positive impact on education in North Carolina.
“People don’t realize the benefits to Pre-K and scholarship dollars,” Miller said.
One of the most recent examples of the lottery’s impact on Craven County happened earlier this year.
In February, Craven County Schools started construction on a project to expand an existing campus so that two middle schools could be merged into one. A $15.3 million lottery-funded grant will pay most of the cost to build the new Freedom Middle School.
“We have been able to do some things with the lottery funds to build the buildings our students deserve and our teachers deserve,” Miller said.
Miller is now retired from Craven County Schools. Out of all the jobs she has held in education, some of the best memories were from early in her career.
“The greatest work, and I have had all of the positions, happens in that classroom between the teachers and students,” she said.
Check out the video below of Miller discussing her experience scratching the first lottery ticket.
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