State-Journal.com - $200,000 after 20 years

Photo By Hilly SchifferRon and Linda Wainscott of Frankfort hold a $200,000 check from the Kentucky Lottery after Ron won on a Powerball ticket Friday. The couple said they plan to use their money to remodel their bathroom, possibly take a trip and give some to charity.

Linda Wainscott thought something was wrong when she saw her husband’s truck in the driveway in the middle of the afternoon.

But everything was OK – $200,000 better than OK, really.

After 20 years of playing the same lottery numbers twice a week, Ron hit all five – 8, 12, 14, 22 and 29, his birthday and the birthdays of his wife and three grown children.

He picked 24, his wedding anniversary, for the Powerball. The winning number was 22, and those two digits cost him a $96 million jackpot.

After taxes, the Frankfort couple took home $138,000.

“I don’t believe in luck – I believe things happen because of the choices you make,” said Ron, a retired state worker and farmer.

“If we’d chosen 46 years ago to get married two days earlier, we’d be multi-millionaires, but we made a bad choice.”

“And it’s still hurtin’,” said Linda, as the two burst into laughter.

Ron likely lost the lottery more than 10,000 times before winning.

“It’s dreaming,” he said. “It’s a dream almost everyone has.”

He buys 10 tickets each week for $1 a piece at Noble’s Restaurant and Truck Stop in Corinth, all with the same five numbers. He started when the Kentucky Lottery was created in 1989.

Two or three months ago, he thought about changing numbers, but decided against it. The odds of him winning last week were one in 5,006,386.

“It took me 20 years, and not everybody is going to hit it,” he said. “But things do happen.”

The numbers were drawn last Wednesday, but Ron didn’t find out he was a winner until Friday the 13^th. He was too busy painting the garage to drive to the truck stop.

But his friend stopped there Friday before a fishing trip. The cashiers were searching for the winner, so he called Ron and told him to check his ticket.

“For some reason or another, I just had the feeling that I hit that thing,” Ron said.

He drove to Corinth off Interstate 75 in Grant County, where he has a farm. As he pulled up to the truck stop, he saw a sign in the window advising, “everybody check your ticket – somebody’s hit it.”

He knew he still had a chance.

“When I looked at the first three numbers – 8, 12 and 14 – I knew I had it,” he said. “I think I stood there a second and looked at it.”

As the couple drove to the Kentucky Lottery headquarters in Louisville to claim their prize, Linda, a retired state worker, thought of something they could buy with each passing mile.

Grapevines so they could start a vineyard? No, they don’t drink.

Miniature horses? Ron didn’t want any more animals.

Spinach they could grow on their farm? He couldn’t figure out why she would want to grow spinach.

“I said, ‘Also, I want a boob job,’” Linda said, laughing as she recalled the moment. “He said, ‘It’s too late for you.’”

Then he suggested a compromise.

“We’ll do one and see how it goes, then we can do the other.”

The Wainscotts plan to remodel their bathroom, buy new carpet and travel to the Biltmore in Asheville, N.C., to see the Christmas lights.

“Maybe I’ll get that heated toilet seat after all,” Linda said.

Beyond that, they haven’t decided what to do with the money.

Some of Ron’s friends have suggested he buy more land for his 112-acre farm, but he doesn’t really want the hassle. He retired from raising cattle and tobacco, and now he just grows tobacco plants to sell.

He’s also considered investing in gold.

Ron was still dressed in his farm clothes when he turned in the winning ticket. The cashier told him, sincerely, that he looked like he could use $200,000.

“I didn’t really know how to react to that, because I can use it, but I don’t need it,” he said. “A lot of other people need it more.”

He plans to give $2,500 to Corinth Christian Church to start a Christmas toy drive for needy children. His wife was born and raised there, and he says there is a lot of financial need in that community.

Ron says he’s happier with $200,000 than he might have been with a Powerball jackpot. It could have changed the people around him, he says.

“If you win millions of dollars, there could be problems,” he said.

When he worked for the state, he got his coworkers to go in on a lottery ticket when the jackpot got huge. He always thought it would be more fun that way – everyone winning a few hundred thousand dollars instead of one person becoming a millionaire.

“That would be fun for 40 people you work with to get half a million each,” he said.

“That would be fun. If one person got it all, it might be fun for them, but it would change everyone around you.”

Ron plans to keep playing the lottery, using the same five numbers.

“The numbers don’t have any memory, the same set of numbers could pop up in the next drawing,” he said.

“That set of numbers has the same chance as any other set of numbers.”