New York Lottery: Incredible coincidence: Two Fort Drum reservists hit lottery jackpots

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Two families from the same upstate New York community and with ties to the U.S. Army's Fort Drum are the state's newest instant millionaires.

The winners of the two $1 million scratch-off games are from Carthage in Jefferson County, lottery officials said Thursday.

"This is unprecedented," said Jennifer Mauer, a lottery spokeswoman. "These are the first two Carthage winners we've ever had. It's completely random, so anything can happen."

Wendy and Donald Childers bought the winning $5 Lotto Luck ticket Sunday at Carthage Market. Childers, 39, is an Army reservist and 20-year civilian mechanic at Fort Drum who returned last November from a year in Iraq. Wendy Childers is a housekeeper at the Ramada Inn in Watertown.

The couple, who have three children, said they plan to invest the money after taking care of their debts and helping their children pay for college.

Stacy James, an inactive reservist, purchased a winning $5 Spread The Wealth ticket on March 12 from the Wilson Farms Sugar Creek store in Great Bend but held onto it until her husband, Michael, came home on two weeks leave in April. Michael James has been serving in Iraq since August 2005.

James, a pharmacy technician, said the couple planned to buy a house and invest the winnings. They have three children.

The odds of hitting the jackpot with a Lotto Luck ticket are about one in 2.6 million, according to the New York Lottery's Web site. The odds of hitting the jackpot with Spread The Wealth are one in 3.5 million.