Lottery player slowly walks to boss’s office to share her good news. ‘I think I won’

An Iowa woman usually waits weeks to check her lottery tickets, which collect dust as a potential winner is left in the dark.

But after the Aug. 5 Powerball drawing, fortune came early for Lynne Kannuan.

Kannuan, a health care worker from Webster City, said a friend from Arkansas informed her that someone from her town won a huge prize in the Powerball drawing the night before.

“I hadn’t checked my ticket. I had it in my purse,” Kannuan told lottery officials in a Sept. 19 news release. “I don’t usually check my tickets until maybe two or three weeks later. I wouldn’t have checked it if she hadn’t told me. She goes, ‘Go check your ticket, it might be you!’”

After checking the ticket at work, she soon realized her friend’s intuition was right. Kannuan had just won $1 million.

“I had to check the numbers twice to make sure,” she said. “And then I got up slowly and walked straight to my boss’s office. And I said, ‘Um ...’ And she goes, ‘What? What’s going on, Lynne?’ So I sat down and I said, ‘I think I won the $1 million!’”

Kannuan matched the five white balls — 29-42-44-51-54 — to win the prize. Had she matched the Powerball number — 12 — she would have won the game’s estimated jackpot of $174 million.

But that’s fine for Kannuan, who described her $1 million win as “not too much, not too little, just right.”

Kannuan said she purchased her ticket with winnings from a scratch-off ticket that won $5.

After winning the $1 million, she said she told her family and they kept it quiet for weeks until they could formulate a plan.

Now, the Kannuan family plans on paying off bills, investing and sharing with family. Lynne Kannuan also plans to treat herself to a new car.

Webster City is about a 75-mile drive north from Des Moines.

This story was originally published September 19, 2024 at 3:10 PM with the headline "Lottery player slowly walks to boss’s office to share her good news. ‘I think I won’."