Ballwin bride-to-be wins $250,000 in lottery

BALLWIN -- Tracie Rogers, a Ballwin bride-to-be, is ready to cash in big time after her fiancée ran to the store to get a CD -- and decided he should probably pick up something for her, too. 

Rob Russell, 33, bought Rogers a "$250,000 Payout" scratchers ticket at the local QuikTrip last week. Sure enough, she got the top prize. 

"I thought it was fake," Rogers, 29, said in an interview Thursday. "You see this on TV, but I thought, 'No way. These things don't happen to me.'" 

Russell bought the ticket from the QuikTrip at 14800 Manchester Road. Rogers returned to the store, showed it to the clerk to confirm it was real. She got a high-five from the happy clerk. 

The Missouri Lottery said "$250,000 Payout" is a $10 game that began June 12. 

Rogers said she and Russell have been together 12 years and got engaged in 2007. They never have set a date for the wedding. He lost his job as a welder, and Rogers has been unemployed as well. 

"It didn't seem right to spend that kind of money" on a big wedding, she said. 

Now with the lottery winnings, Rogers said she would like to pay off the mortgage on their house. "That will be one big burden we won't have to think about," she told Lottery officials.