Pennsylvania winner says ticket shoved in shoebox for nearly a year
CUMBERLAND COUNTY, Pa. — A winning Powerball lottery ticket worth $400,000 sold in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, last year was set to expire today.
But just hours before the deadline, Lottery officials announced that a winner came forward.
Two weeks ago Pennsylvania Lottery officials started asking players to check their old tickets.
Pennsylvania Lottery officials announced that the winner is Brenda Stover, of New Cumberland, who validated her winning ticket this morning.
Winning ticket stuffed in old shoebox
On May 28, 2008, Stover bought the ticket at the Karns grocery store in Mechanicsburg. Two weeks ago, Stover's husband saw on the news that there was an unclaimed prize. So, Brenda checked her shoebox of old tickets.
One of them matched all five of the first five Powerball winning numbers, but not the Powerball — which qualified it as the winning ticket of second prize.
Stover took the ticket to a lottery retailer on May 22, where they confirmed it was the $400,000 winning ticket. The ticket was mailed to lottery headquarters in Middletown where officials confirmed Stover as the winner.
"We just encourage players to please check your tickets," said Ed Trees, a Pennsylvania Lottery representative. "The lottery certainly does not want any prize, especially a prize of this size, to go unclaimed."
So far, Stover is not doing interviews and she chose not to do a public check presentation. It is still unclear why her ticket was stuffed in an old shoebox for a year.