Bus driver scratched lottery ticket on NC roadside — and the prize left her screaming
A woman checked her lottery ticket on the side of a North Carolina highway — and discovered a big surprise.
“I was shocked and got outside of my car and I was just shouting,” Veronica DeVane told the N.C. Education Lottery about winning the $200,000 prize.
DeVane, who has jobs as a school cafeteria worker and bus driver, said the windfall will “change her life,” according to a news release published Thursday.
Officials say her good fortune started when she went to West Service Center in Rose Hill. The business is in Duplin County and roughly 45 miles northwest of Wilmington.
That’s where DeVane told officials she decided to try her luck on a pair of $5 tickets for the Bonus Bucks scratch-off game on Sunday.
“I don’t usually play the lottery but that one day I stopped and had $10 extra and I said, ‘I’m gonna buy two tickets,’” she said in the news release.
She got in the car with a friend, who tried scratching off one of the tickets, the release said. But when the friend’s effort hadn’t revealed the main prize, DeVane took matters into her own hands.
“I just stopped on the side of the road and I scratched it off,” she said in the release.
The ticket revealed the bus driver had won the game’s top prize of $200,000, officials say.
“That’s a great feeling there,” said DeVane, who lives in Ivanhoe, part of Sampson County.
After taxes, DeVane got to keep $141,501, which she may spend on home repairs or family, according to the lottery.
“There’s a lot of things I want to do and I’m gonna be able to do them now,” she told officials. “I’ll renovate my house and my granddaughter is getting ready to go off to college and maybe I can do a little something for her.”
This story was originally published October 8, 2020 at 11:39 AM with the headline "Bus driver scratched lottery ticket on NC roadside — and the prize left her screaming."
