SCRATCHING HER WAY TO $7,000 JACKPOT: Myers says money will go toward sewing room

By DUANE SHERRILL / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

After taxes on her $7,000 winnings, Jean Myers took home a $5,250 check. (Duane Sherrill photo)

Lucky 7 was very lucky for a local lady who scratched her $7,000 winning ticket while sitting in the parking lot of a local funeral home.

“I was froze. I couldn’t say anything,” said lottery winner Jean Myers, 69, who said she was preparing to help make funeral arrangements for a relative when she paused in her car outside High Funeral Home to scratch her lottery ticket.

Myers bought the winning ticket Thursday from Jennifer Patton at Scot’s Market, after taking a calculated risk.

“I’ve spent $9 on the lottery since it started and I’ve won $7,” Myers said. “So, when I went to cash in my tickets, instead of getting money, I told them to just give me tickets. One of those was the winner.”

Myers said she scratched off the tic-tac-toe portion of the ticket first and found out she was a diagonal winner. Any three 7s in a row means a winning ticket.

“I figured I’d just won a few dollars,” Myers recalled thinking before scratching off the winning amount. “When it said $7,000, I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

Myers traveled to Nashville to redeem her winning ticket since all large amounts, over $599, must be redeemed at a lottery office. After taxes, Myers brought home a little over $5,200.

As for her plans, Myers said she intends to put the money toward building a sewing room on the back of her house.

“It’s hard for me to get up and down the stairs for the sewing materials now, so that will make it easier,” Myers said. “I know it won’t pay for the whole thing, but it’ll go a long ways toward it.”