Roller wins new car just like her old car

By JAMES CLARK / Business Editor for the Southern Standard (McMinnville, Tenn.)

Patsy Roller emerged from a Three Star Mall crowd estimated at 3,000 to win a 2002 Chevy Cavalier Friday night. Mall officials say they received about 7,500 entries.

For all the folks who spent the last few weeks collecting tickets to try and win the car given away at Three Star Mall, you wasted your time. Patsy Roller waltzed into the mall Friday afternoon at about 2:30 p.m. to turn in some receipts for a couple tickets. About four hours later, Roller was making her way through a crowd of people to pick up the keys to her new car.

“My car is torn up right now,” said Patsy while looking over her new 2002 Chevy Cavalier. “And this sure helps.”

So what kind of car did Patsy drive before? A Chevy Cavalier. It’s a ’94 model with around 90,000 miles.

“It’s been a good one,” said Patsy, indicating she’s more than happy to have another Cavalier to drive.

In all, Patsy had 11 tickets, which made her chances of winning about 1 in 682 considering mall officials estimate around 7,500 tickets were handed out. The turnout Friday evening was spectacular as around 3,000 people packed the old Kmart building to see if they could win the car or about a dozen other prizes.

“This is the best promotion we’ve ever done,” said Three Star Mall official Susie Griffith. “We really didn’t know how many people to expect because we’ve never done this before.

“It really went over well. I had a lot of people tell me they shopped here when they might have gone out of town. And it was a fun thing to do.”

For people already thinking ahead to next year, Susie said the promotion went so well they would in all likelihood do it again next year.

“From what everyone has told me, it really improved sales here,” she said.