It was all a dream — or at least that’s what one west Tennessee woman and her adult son thought after their big Tennessee Lottery win.
Fairview resident Katie Gearheart and her son Jason couldn’t believe their eyes when they became the lucky recipients of a $3 million prize after playing the Jumbo Bucks Bonus game.
Fairview woman & son win $3 million
Gearheart and her son have been known to play a variety of lottery games on occasion. On this particularly fateful day, they decided to purchase a gold and black ticket from the Walmart Supercenter on Hopgood Road.
They scratched off the stub and couldn’t believe what they saw. If they were reading it correctly, the pair had just won the game’s $3 million grand prize.
To verify the big victory, the two went to a second lottery retail store. It was there that they discovered they’d officially become millionaires. The news was almost unbelievable, playing out for the duo like a scene from a movie.
Gearheart says the store clerk “started jumping up and down” after seeing her ticket, “and the owner even walked me to my car.”
Still half-convinced this is all some sort of fantasy, they’ve yet to decide what to do with the winning sum.
“It still hasn’t hit me,” Gearheart said.
Jason added, “It feels like a dream.”
Tennessee Lottery millionaires multiply
Gearheart and her son might be the newest lottery winners, but they certainly weren’t the first winning duo from Tennessee. Last October, two friends from Carthage became $3 million winners after purchasing a ticket while on their way to work one morning.
This most recent win marks the 340th ticket purchased worth $1 million or more since the Tennessee Lottery first launched in January 2004. Since then, the lottery has seen sales consistently soar. In fact, a third Powerball drawing day was added in August 2021 in order to address the growing interest.
Only time will tell who will be the next lucky player to turn their millionaire dreams into a reality.
But if you don’t play, you can’t win. Join in on the excitement by grabbing a scratch off at your nearest lottery retailer.
To paraphrase the words of Biggie Smalls, if ya don’t know, now ya know — it pays to play the Tennessee lottery.
