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Posted on 12/26/2002 12:53:41 PM PST by Salvation
Record high
West Virginia contractor wins largest single lottery jackpot
Thursday December 26, 2002
By Gavin McCormick
The Associated Press
A 55-year-old West Virginia water and sewer contractor has won the $314.9 million Powerball jackpot, the largest single lottery jackpot in history.
Andrew Jackson Whittaker Jr. received a $10 million advance check from Gov. Bob Wise Thursday at a news conference. The balance of Whittaker's $314.9 million won't be presented for another two weeks.
Whittaker said he originally thought he had lost the jackpot because the numbers came up wrong on the televised drawing Christmas night. It wasn't until Thursday morning that he realized he won the jackpot.
The winning numbers were 5-14-16-29-53 and the Powerball was 7.
"The very first thing I'm going to do is go home and make out three checks to three pastors,” said Whittaker, who was dressed in all black and was wearing a black cowboy hat.
"I've been blessed my entire life,” he said.
Whittaker is the president of three construction companies. He said he has about 25 employees laid off now because of the weather.
”Every morning I wake up I feel like I've won the lottery,” Whittaker said.
He decided to take the cash option, which entitles him to a one-time payment of $170 million, or $111,681.349 after taxes.
"I've had to work for everything in my life. This is the first thing that's ever been given to me,” he said, who is originally from Jumping Branch, Summers County.
He and his wife, Jewell, plan to travel to New York City Thursday night.
After learning he had won the lottery, he went back to C&L Super Serve, the store where he spent $100 purchasing Powerball tickets on Monday. When he returned to the store he gave one of the employees a $100 tip.
The store's owner, Larry Trogdon, received a $100,000 check for selling the winning ticket.
I really didn't mean to make it sound that way. Your explanation corrected my understanding of the $100 tip. I thought he had already won and had given the ticket seller a lousy tip. My mistake.
BTW....I just started my own religion and will be relocating to W. Virginia tonight.
West Virginia sure has high tax rates!
170,000,000.00
-$169,888,318.651 in taxes
________________
$111,681.349
I thinks the last period shoulda been a coma.. It helps when they put 00 at the end. Should be $111,681,349.00!!
Meega, Nala Kweesta!
Ehhhh... I don't know if i'll 'rejoice' but I am happy for him. My point was that the guy was not singled out by God and 'blessed'. May the lord reach down and touch your heart with understanding and compassion.
55-Year-Old Man Wins $314.9M Powerball
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -
A 55-year-old contractor won the $314.9 million Powerball jackpot, the largest single lottery jackpot in history, lottery officials said Thursday.
Andrew Jackson Whittaker Jr., opted to take the lump sum of more than $111 million after taxes, Lottery spokeswoman Nancy Bulla said.
"I've had to work for everything in my life. This is the first thing that's ever been given to me," he said.
Whittaker said he originally thought he had lost the jackpot because the numbers came up wrong on the televised drawing Christmas night. It wasn't until Thursday morning that he realized he won.
He said he plans to pay his tithe to the Church of God with the winnings.
"The very first thing I'm going to do is go home and make out three checks to three pastors," said Whittaker, who was dressed in all black and was wearing a black cowboy hat.
His wife of 36 years said she plans to go to Israel.
"I'd just go to go there. It's where Jesus walked," Jewell Whittaker said.
The couple planned to travel to New York City Thursday night.
"I just want to thank God for letting me pick the right numbers - or letting the machine pick the right numbers," Whittaker said.
Whittaker said he would share the rest of his winnings with his family, and may expand his business. He has a daughter named Ginger and a 15-year-old granddaughter.
Ginger Whittaker said she had cancer twice and had not worked for about a year. "I was getting ready to go back to work but I think I'm retired now," she said.
"I'm getting really excited because of the good works I can do with this money," Whittaker said.
Whittaker is the president of three construction companies.
"I have 25 people laid off right now at Christmas and I want more work so I can put them back to work," he said. He said he currently employs 117 people.
He told Bulla he was not a regular lottery player but he bought $100 in tickets because the jackpot was so high. He plays when it reaches $100 million.
Whittaker went back to the store Thursday morning to fill up on gas and buy some biscuits as he does each day. The clerk was the one who sold him the ticket Monday.
"She said, 'No you didn't, you're not excited enough to win the lottery.' And she pushed me out the door," he said.
The ticket was purchased at the C&L Super Serve in Hurricane, 25 miles west of Charleston.
"It's so just that the poorest state in America wins the biggest Powerball in history," said Bob O'Dell, a 51-year-old resident of the town that's pronounced herr' ah cun. (West Virginia's per capita income actually was second lowest to Mississippi's in 2000.)
The jackpot was the largest ever for a single winning ticket, Bulla said. It also was the third-largest jackpot in U.S. history.
An unexpected Christmas Day run on Powerball tickets pushed the already whopping $280 million jackpot to $314.9 million just before numbers were drawn, making it the Powerball's largest prize ever.
The winning numbers were 5-14-16-29-53 and the Powerball was 7.
Whittaker had the option of taking a cash payout of $170 million before taxes or collecting the entire jackpot in 30 payments over 29 years.
He took the lump sum and Gov. Bob Wise presented him with an initial check of $10 million.
At the Super Serve early Thursday in Hurricane, a town of 5,200 residents, clerk Aaron Gillispie said the 24-hour grocery store and gas station was in a frenzy.
"It's a mad house," he said in an Associated Press Radio interview. "Every camera crew, every news crew, every person that has anything to do with anything wants to talk to us."
Super Serve owner Larry Trogdon told NBC's "Today" that police called his house at 3 a.m.
"It was scary," he said. "Then they told me we sold the lottery ticket for $314 million. That made me relieved. Then I had to travel 90 miles to get here."
By selling the ticket, Trogdon gets $100,000.
"I have a daughter getting married this summer," he told NBC, smiling.
"I guess we're honeymooning in Hawaii," said his daughter, Amy, who manages the Hurricane store and is to wed Gillispie July 19.
"Heck, if you're going to Hawaii, I'm coming with you," Trogdon answered, laughing.
Powerball, the nation's largest lottery game, is sold in 23 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Before the Christmas 2002 prize, the largest Powerball jackpot was $295.7 million in July 1998.
The biggest lottery jackpot in U.S. history was a Big Game prize of $363 million, won in May 2000 by ticketholders in Michigan and Illinois. The second was a $331 million Big Game jackpot split between three tickets in April.
Spain's annual Christmas lottery known as El Gordo - The Fat One - is billed as the world's richest. This year's $1.7 billion jackpot spreads wealth among millions of people. About 10,000 numbers win some kind of prize, from $20 to $200,000.
I frankly could care less who won what and how much...The real story is the chunk the State and Federal Goons are stealing...keep in mind that every single dollar was alread taxed when it was earned, and taxed again on by the lottery to the tune of around 50%
So in Fact...what was once 600 or so million dollars of taxed income gets taxed again to the tune of around 500 Million...
Meanwhile the media and freepers fawn over the event either ignoring or ignorant to the monumental theft of citizen money going on...
About being mean or the lousy tip?
You have to forgive me....I just lost the mega millions thing here in Jersey. I had all six numbers....three each on two tickets.
Sombebody get me a pair of scissors and scotch tape.
The lottery's simply a voluntary tax for people who are wicked, wicked retarded at math.
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