Lottery player’s win leaves her ‘screaming at work,’ officials say. ‘Unbelievable’
The news of a lucky lottery player’s big win left her “screaming” at her Maryland workplace, officials said.
Shari Hunt-Caldwell, 61, earned her big win by playing the Holiday scratch-off game and entering her non-winning tickets into the second-chance drawing, officials said in a Jan. 8 news release. She usually checks the winners online after the drawing but was busy during the Dec. 4 one and didn’t get a chance to look.
“Needless to say, the Glen Burnie resident was shocked when a Lottery representative called to tell her she won $100,000,” officials said.
That’s when the courthouse employee “started screaming at work,” which garnered “some unusual looks” from coworkers, she told officials. “It was unbelievable.”
Finding out at work gave Hunt-Caldwell the opportunity to surprise her family with the news. She invited some of them over to her home and said she had a “big announcement.”
Even her husband Darryl was intrigued, officials said.
“It was a family surprise,” he said. “We thought there was something wrong.”
Hunt-Caldwell gave her family members notes with the good news and had them open it at the same time — but Darryl had trouble with his.
“I had to wait for someone else to open their paper to find out the news,” he told lottery officials. “It was great.”
Hunt-Caldwell’s strategy won her a notable second-chance prize before. In 2023, she won “club level season tickets for one year” through a Baltimore Ravens promotion, officials said.
She doesn’t know yet how she plans to spend her big prize but said she’ll likely pay off some bills and may look into home improvement projects.
“I never had that many zeroes in my bank account,” she said.
Glen Burnie is about a 15-mile drive south from Baltimore.
The final Holiday Second-Chance Promotion drawing is on Jan. 16, officials said. One $100,000 and five $5,000 prizes will be awarded.
This story was originally published January 10, 2025 at 1:04 PM with the headline "Lottery player’s win leaves her ‘screaming at work,’ officials say. ‘Unbelievable’."
