Tuesday, October 28, 2003
ROSEVILLE, Minn. — It wasn't easy for Karen Overman to concentrate on her work Monday morning as a cook in the Holdingford School District (search), where she helps feed about 950 students every day.
Perhaps she can be excused. Just a day earlier, she found out she would soon be a millionaire.
Overman was one of 16 school workers -- 15 cooks and one custodian -- who smiled and laughed as they claimed a $95 million Powerball (search) jackpot Monday. The winners discovered their good fortune Sunday but were all back on the lunch line the next day. Because they were at work, they delayed the verification of their winning ticket until the evening.
"I know there's a need for news conferences in the morning, but we've got breakfast to put out," Overman told reporters at state lottery headquarters here.
Lottery play had become routine for the women. Every paycheck since 1990, they all contributed a quarter toward a ticket for each of the four Powerball drawings in the two-week period.
The school workers bought one of two winning tickets for a $190.9 million jackpot.
The women said they hadn't decided whether to choose the cash option, which would amount to $2.1 million apiece after taxes, or the payment option, valued at $134,000 per year for 30 years.
The women, who call themselves the "Happy Huskers" after the school's mascot, the Huskers, range in age from 35 to "old enough to retire," as Donna Lange said.
Lange said the ticket was posted on a bulletin board at the school, which the group has done with every ticket, when she realized it was a winner after checking the numbers she had copied down with those in a Sunday newspaper.
She immediately called Overman, who had a key to the school.
"I called her a liar like three times," Overman said.
The two opened the school and checked the numbers. After the matched, they checked again with figures from a radio station and numbers of the lottery's Web site. Then they checked them again, and again after that.
The women tried to keep their good fortune a secret by telling only family members Sunday night, but the news quickly spread in their small town near St. Cloud, nearby Avon and the surrounding area.
A band and a big group of students saw them off as they left Monday afternoon to have the ticket validated in Roseville.
"I couldn't wait to get rid of that ticket," Lange said.
Most in the group said they didn't plan on giving up their school lunch jobs just yet.
"One of the students asked me how it felt to be a millionaire. I said, 'I don't know about that, but you're very lucky to have million-dollar cooks,"' said winner Elaine Schumer.
The women's wish lists include new cars, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, a vacation and paying off a wedding.
The winning ticket was purchased at Dahlin's Supermarket in Avon.
No one has claimed a second ticket that was sold in a small southwestern Indiana town that matched Saturday's winning numbers of 6-17-45-47-48 and the Powerball 4.
The Holdingford group is Minnesota's 16th Powerball winner. Their lump award is the largest haul in Minnesota since Farrah Slad of Brainerd pocketed $78.8 million in cash in 1999 to become the biggest Powerball winner in the state.
They're the first Powerball winners in Minnesota since late 2001, when Jeff Holmberg of Richfield took home $16.7 million in cash.
