Local jackpot announcement briefly had me really excited

For about 10 minutes last Wednesday afternoon, I got really excited.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

My wonderful wife, Cecelia, and I were having lunch when she noticed on Facebook that a $1 million winning Mega Millions ticket had been sold at the Circle K on Gordon Hill.

Since this is where I almost always buy my lottery tickets, I started getting really excited. I figured that my chances of winning $1 million had just dropped down from one out of a billion to one out of a few thousands.

When she went to the restroom, I got my wallet out, which is admittedly a mess, and started looking through my old lottery tickets. I usually only check then every two or three months unless I’ve heard that somebody at my usual lottery ticket location has won big.

I dug and I dug in my wallet, but couldn’t find the ticket for last Tuesday’s drawing. So I went through my wallet again looking for the ticket from last Tuesday’s drawing.

Then it hit me. I hadn’t bought my tickets Saturday as usual at Circle K on Gordon Hill. Saturday we went to West Virginia to celebrate my father-in-law’s birthday and I bought my lottery tickets some place off the interstate when we stopped to get gas.

Bummer!

Not too long after I made this realization, I found the ticket for last Tuesday’s drawing. I hadn’t matched a single number.

Oh, well. The excitement over the possibility of winning was nice while I had it.

In case anyone is wondering, the winner of the $1 million was George Cerveny of Corbin, who didn’t match the Mega Ball, but did match the first five numbers in the drawing. I hope Cerveny and his wife enjoy the money. The clerks at the store were excited for him when I stopped by there last Wednesday to buy my tickets for the next drawings.

I’m not a big gambler, but I do like to play the lottery. I usually buy a ticket for every Powerball and Mega Millions lottery drawing every week.

Yeah, I know that I am in all probability not going to win, but I get $10 of enjoyment each week just thinking about what I could do with the money if I won big.

My wife tells me buying lottery tickets isn’t a need and that it is a want. I jokingly tell her that it is a need for me because it gives me hope of not having to work until the day I die…LOL.

The closest I ever came to winning big was a situation where I was one digit away from winning $100,000 about 25 years ago.

It was the Powerball and I matched the first four digits exactly and came within one digit of matching a fifth number, which would have given me the $100,000. (Matching five numbers with no Powerball number now would get you $1 million.)

That one stung for a while.

I did win $100 for matching four numbers, which came in handy that year during my vacation to Indianapolis.

Now let’s talk about football briefly before I conclude this column.

A couple of weeks ago when seemingly everyone in Whitley County was at the Corbin-Frederick Douglass football game, I got the chance to check out the other local big game that night, which was Whitley County vs. Bell County.

The first half of Whitley vs. Bell was one of the best halves of a football game that I have ever watched.

New head coach Matt Rhymer has these kids ready to play. I don’t think they have the numbers yet to make a serious run in the playoffs, but I think they are going to get there.

This Colonels team is one that opponents better come in ready to play and not be looking at the next game down the road, or they are liable to get beat.