Grandmother’s grocery run leads to big NC lottery prize. ‘I just started crying’
A grandmother stopped for groceries — and scored a winning lottery ticket in North Carolina.
“I just started crying,” winner Linda Virgil told the N.C. Education Lottery.
Now, she plans to be generous with her $700,000 prize.
“I’m going to share it with my kids and grandchildren,” Virgil said in a March 31 news release.
Virgil hit the jackpot after making her “typical mid-week grocery run” in Fayetteville, roughly 65 miles south of Raleigh. While at a Food Lion supermarket on Cliffdale Road, officials said she spent $10 on a ticket for the Triple 7 scratch-off game.
Then when Virgil checked her ticket, a grocery worker confirmed that she snagged the game’s biggest prize, according to the N.C. Education Lottery.
Virgil, who lives in the Hoke County town of Raeford, kept $498,753 after taxes. In addition to sharing her winnings with family, she said she hopes to go back to the Food Lion store to thank the worker for helping her.
It’s not the first time a lucky lottery ticket has made a player burst into tears. In South Carolina, a man “cried like a baby” over his recent $3 million win, McClatchy News reported in March.
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This story was originally published April 3, 2023 at 10:22 AM with the headline "Grandmother’s grocery run leads to big NC lottery prize. ‘I just started crying’."
