NC packaging plant employee walks out of gas station with $1 million lottery ticket

Good news has been hard to come by in North Carolina this week, but a woman in the small mountain town of Boomer found reason to celebrate Tuesday.

April Lee won $1 million with a lottery ticket purchased at a Wilkesboro gas station, according to a North Carolina Education Lottery press release.

Lee was headed to her job at a packaging plant at the time, said the release.

“I was looking at this ticket and something just said to go and get it,” Lee said in a press statement.

It was during a lunch break that she pulled out the $10 Carolina Millions scratch-off ticket and learned it was a winner, said the release.

“I started screaming and hollering,” Lee said in the press release. “I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it.”

Given a choice of a lump sum of $600,000 or annual payments of $50,000 for 20 years, Lee chose the $600,000, said the lottery.

State and federal withholding chewed her winnings to $423,009, said lottery officials, but Lee said that is still more than enough money to make a dream come true.

She’s buying a home, according to a press release.

“We rent a home right now,” Lee said in a statement. “It would be nice to get something closer to where my husband and I work.”

Lee claimed her prize Wednesday in Raleigh, officials said.

This story was originally published September 20, 2018 at 12:10 PM.