Mom makes second stop when store runs of ice. It led to a big Iowa lottery win
'I don't know how it happened, but it happened,' Heather Cole, the 36-year-old winner from Fort Dodge, told Iowa Lottery officials while accepting her jackpot prize May 19.
Cole was driving her three children to dentist appointments when they made their multiple stops. While at Coalville Stop-N-Shop near Dodge City, she purchased two Silver Streak scratch-off tickets with $20 from previous winnings.
'And lo and behold, I went to scratch it and revealed $100,000!' Cole said, according to a news release.
She is the second person to win the top prize in the Silver Streak game, which costs $10 to play. Odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 123,394.29.
Cole said she 'was almost in tears' when she told her children the good news, per the release.
And she has her family in mind for what's to come. She told lottery officials she hopes to use the money to take a family vacation, as well as pay off debt.
'I knew one day hopefully I would get it,' Cole said, according to the release.
Fort Dodge is about a 95-mile drive northwest from Des Moines.
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Cole is currently in the thick of this discomfort, and unsure how to progress his relationship. 'It's almost like the elephant in the room,' he says of their financial differences. 'This is the next step where I need to man up and say, 'What's happening here? Logistically, is this going to work?'.' He has mulled a marriage proposal, but in the absence of any open conversations about money, that has wrought anxiety, too. 'Where the hell am I going to get £30,000 from? Does it matter? These are things going around in my head,' he says. 'Would she be happy with a £200 ring? I doubt it.' *Names have been changed. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
