By Wendy Bigham The Herald
(Published October 9‚ 2004)
CLOVER -- Willie Meeks dreams at night of numbers that might bring mega money and writes them down in the morning.
The Gastonia, N.C., resident sees the numbers everywhere: on television, on various objects at his work. And they all might be the key to a Powerball jackpot.
The Powerball drawing for $215 million is tonight. Meeks, his girlfriend Cyndi Steelmon and many others purchasing tickets Friday at Clover Shop & Save will wait to see if they won. It's the 10th largest Powerball jackpot ever.
Not a lottery addict, Meeks says he constantly thinks about what could be the winning number. But, like a ritual, he only indulges himself once a week to actually purchase the tickets. So far, he hasn't won more than money for gasoline.
The lottery tickets are his chance to start over, he said.
The former prison inmate hopes to show that people who've been in jail can be productive citizens when they get out. He's already written a screenplay for a movie. And now he wants to write about someone down on his luck who wins the lottery.
Rita Patterson of Stanley, N.C., drives to the store 40 minutes from her home when the jackpot gets big. Patterson said she's disabled and has had a string of bad luck lately. If she wins, she may split the jackpot with a friend who is moving to Colorado. Her friend needs a stove.
After all, the last winning jackpot number came from the Clover Shop and Save. And a sign in the store reminds shoppers of that fact.
A Concord, N.C., resident won half of a $221.5 million lottery jackpot on New Year's Eve in what was the fifth-largest Powerball jackpot ever.
Friday, a few people steadily bought scratch lottery tickets and Pick 3 tickets offered by the S.C. Education Lottery. They sat around a table designated just for the lottery-enthusiasts. Other places in the store and the Bojangles next door had signs up saying no one could scratch off their lottery tickets there.
More are coming, said Shop and Save manager Russell McCarter.
Every time the lottery goes up, the customers come, gas sales and in-store sales all go up, he said.
Because the winning ticket was purchased there in January, the money went to pay for employees. This year, if the store gets the money again, the employees may get Christmas bonuses.
Three Powerball winners since it began in South Carolina were from North Carolina, said Tara Robertson, spokeswoman for the state lottery. Still, players chances of winning are about one in 20 million, she said.
York County stores close to North Carolina state line -- especially Fort Mill area stores like Red Rocket on U.S. 21, Circle K and Exxon on Carowinds Boulevard and Miller's Produce on S.C. 51, as well as Clover Shop & Save on U.S. 321 -- are the five largest sellers of Powerball tickets in the state, Robertson said.
At Red Rocket on Friday morning, about 10 people were in line for the lottery, said store manger Sharon Jamison.
If someone buys a winning ticket there and the store wins $50,000, customers told Jamison that she and all her employees should take a long vacation.
"'All right,'" Jamison said. "I want to go to Walt Disney World."
Wendy Bigham • 329-4068