Bobbi Hubbard of South Pittsburg, Tenn., keeps busy working on community projects like trying to start a free medical clinic in Marion County. She has lived in the same house for 18 years.
On the outside, there's little to show that she hit a $25.5 million Powerball jackpot in 2005, making her the state's all-time big winner as Powerball marks its seventh anniversary in Tennessee. And, unlike some cases in other states where big lottery winners didn't handle their fast fortunes well, Hubbard and her family have had a smooth transition through reasonably prudent spending and by taking a business-like approach.
"We do take a few more vacations," she said cheerfully in a telephone interview. But not to the South of France. And there's no yacht for such travel.
Powerball has become one of the most popular lottery games in the state. The $1 tickets have accounted for more than $1 billion in sales in Tennessee, and 243 Powerball tickets worth $100,000 or more have been sold in Tennessee. Twenty-five were worth at least $1 million.
For Hubbard, now 47, "the first thing we did was get a trustee to manage the money," she recalled.
They paid off bills and their mortgage. "The rest we invested," Hubbard said.
"Now, we live off the interest. We have a certain amount each month we live on. Hopefully, it will last forever. We've tried to be careful about it."
Of course, the jackpot has allowed her family to do a little splashy splurging. But not too much.
They immediately bought a red Dodge Durango so six family members could travel 100 miles to Nashville to claim their winnings. They took home $13.8 million in a lump sum payment.
They later bought a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath home a block from the beach in Panama City, Fla.
"We go there about once a month," Hubbard said.
Then, she bought a red 2009 Dodge Challenger, and husband Richie got a blue 2010 one.
Meanwhile, the Hubbards sold their auto parts store and repair shop. They had won a $25,000 bonus for owning the retail shop that sold the winning ticket.
"We have kind of retired," she said.
Richie Hubbard, though, keeps busy tinkering with vehicles. Before his ticket matched all six Powerball numbers on March 30, 2005, he'd been an auto mechanic specializing in electrical systems and transmissions.
"I still work on 'em every day. As long as they're fast. I don't want one if you can outrun it," said Richie, now 57.
Their three sons have remained well grounded despite the family fortune. One wants to become a minister and is in Israel on an exchange program. Another is a police officer in Kimball, Tenn., fulfilling a lifelong dream to work in law enforcement. The third works at an auto parts retailer with sidelines at a fitness center and renting recreation equipment.
"I think they've all got good work ethics," Richie Hubbard said.
The same low-key reaction to sudden wealth applies to another winner, 67-year-old Rowena McIntyre of Martin, Tenn.
$1 million winner
McIntyre can rattle off the date she matched all five white numbers and won $1 million in Powerball: "Nov. 21, 2009."
For her, there was no new house, no new car. Like the Hubbards, she was cautious about her bulging bankroll.
"I called an attorney the first thing," McIntyre recalled.
And she kept working as a phlebotomist, a medical worker who draws blood, for a year. However, she did save her son from bankruptcy and put a grandson through college.
"Nobody would know I hit the lottery," she said. "I don't go around flaunting it."
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Nice to finally hear a success story from a jackpot winner. Too many times I hear how the negatives can outweigh the positives from a lotto jackpot. Lottery curse my anus, you just have to be smart and take the right steps. Attorney, trust fund, live off of interest, and say no to strangers if they find out about how you won (case-by-case approach).
I will keep a low profile if I win the Powerball Jackpot tonite ..........................
............................... I am only 5' 5" tall
McIntyre has to be cautious. $1 million really isn't that much these days. That amount is nothing to flaunt. Nice to read a story where the money hasn't been blown.
Great story, one smart lady, congrats to the whole family.
This is my first post to LP. I have been reading your comments for about a year now and decided its time to join in on the fun.
I thought it was commical that the article is about how they keep a low profile, yet they are in the media reminding everyone that they had won a few years ago... Good job maintaining that Low Profile!
TN lets retailers buy tickets from their own store?
you find that odd, I don't time treat
think about it, owner or store worker,
just Buying him self a ticket lottery ticket , just like he hand you a ticket, he just pays for it himself and keeps the ticket,
he does not control the outcome of the game in any way. its just like he went a other store and got a ticket, just save time and hit buy key
plus retailers workers also sometimes buy their own mistaken tickets, its all very normaly and legit
Now letting store workers check your ticket for you, Now that's a Bad idea. to many theft story's, gg for self scan scanners.
and their also the clever ones who play instant ticket games, seen a roll has had 4 losers in a roll, and then buys him self the next one, trying to play the odds agiant them self's in hes favor
hell i buy form tn instant ticket vending machines at my local public,kroger just for this. sense i don't know if any dumbie came around buyed 3 to 4 tickets in a row, all lost, and then store worker, buys him self the next one or 2nd, , wins and the next 2 to 4 are losers again, trust me the instant ticket games are not random, their always a set amount of small winners for all the losers in their, and they know it
thro powerball and mega millions, ha
thro their is 1 thing
what if a store owner, Had a dumb beep, hand him the winning jackpot ticket, scanned a loser in, and just pulled off the biggest screw job in history of the lottery
sense their the store owner, and the player must likly got hes tickets form that store
he goes back, Watch's hes own video video surveillance to date the time the ticket was sold, to pass the classic lottery hq questions, and why he was at it, buyed a new ticket, during same hours of the day , with everthing the same like before the video, over writed the person buying the ticket wityh hes new fake video edited to fit in with that tape with selling time period
Bam, you sir just got your self a jackpot, thanks to a dumb player
like i said, never let someone else check your tickets.
ever more so, if i was the store owner, and i knew i just sold a winning jackpot ticket , and i know my players often just hand me the tickets to check to see if they won anything
i have my last nites losers on stand by, remb the numbers, see the powerball and whatever white balls, scan the loser in, and Bam, fool just given me hes winning jackpot ticket, and i got some video surveillance work to do, GG
I don't trust store retailers to be fair, we already have had a taxes lottery stealed forma man, but to be fair, if you got scamed like the above, your idiot and deserve to be robbed, jsut being honest, fools and their money are soon parted. and anyone who could pull it off and Get away with it, i be in shock
the texas lottery found out due to surveillance, he was not the owners, so he did not have access to the videos to learn the spot on date when that guy buyed hes tickets, and to replace ,edit like a pro the video to show him, am just saying, in theory it could be done
now as for these winners, Ya they look smart on saving money, and to be fair, they was public the sec they won,so their low profile was gone the sec our tennessee ceo was using them, the person who interviewed them was local tn news paper reporter doing a follow up of them, sense powerball was getting large they printed the story now.
thro living off the interest is smart,they didn't give to many details what it is thro their getting via investments
like how i plan on living off my dividend payments form company's i plan to buy if such a large amount of money comes, the key to create new wealth to live off of, not use your current wealth , the rich get richer, and the dumb lottery winners get poorer and poorer
Pretty much this.
nice story...congrats to both winners
A lot of good points there joshua.
But I wonder if the lottery makes it to where an owner cannot edit his own tapes. I wonder if doing so would change up the date/time stamp.
Not to mention, from what I read here, TN Lottery would never investigate anyway.
But this is nice to hear of fellow Tennesseans playing it smart with their money. Hopefully this article popping up is a sign that TN will have another multi-millionare winner via Powerball or Mega Millions.
This Tennessean definitely has his tickets ready :)
WHY ARE THE REPORTERS STILL STAWKLING HERE!!!???? ... as long as they have your name and phone, they will keep at it until you give them, at least, a phone interview [?] .. c'mon - there should be a law about bothering lottery winners .. really ..
I guess ultimately the winners dont have to concede to an interview, but yeah it is unnerving that they continue after you. Maybe these winners were hounded enough and worked a deal to say "ok, if I interview you, will you go away?"
And nickey t, you may want to update your signature. I like it and its a great idea, but you might want to change that to Navy Seals, as the Army does not have Seals. We have Rangers and Special Forces :)
Now thats a great lottery story.
These are the stories that should be in that show in TV that likes to make lottery winners like total idiots. I am so happy for them. Obviously the happiness they're drawing from the money will make them live forever.
I am going to start my Foundation to help the poor and lay low otherwise and help alot of other people in secret discret ways.
Totally agree.
The vast majority of lottery winners don't implode and end up on social security! Just imagine how many big winners there are per year across the world - yet the focus is nearly always on the handful of bad news stories??
But I guess if we don't want 'idiot lottery winner' TV shows, it's up to us to complain to the TV companies to say so.
Wouldn't it be great to see a show where winners take you through their new happy, wealthy lives? That's a show I'd much rather watch.
One of my fantasies with the big, big money would be to hire a private investigator to look into the backgrounds and activities of overly-pesky reporters and publish their personal information. "What's good for the goose…" and all. As you can imagine, I'm not a big fan of reporters who hound people.
Then you're looking for "The Lottery Changed My Life" on TLC. It's a very good show that looks at the good side of lottery winners.
My favorite was the guy who said he spent the first hour after getting the money deposited in his account calling the bank's automated machine just so he could hear his balance over, and over, and over, and over again.
and a person has the CHOICE to decline , there is a hang up button . No harm no foul in expressing the truth on how their lifestyles have stayed grounded in reality.
I was pleased that the One lady continued to work, shows she has integrity to still be a positive force. SO often people think its Selfish by not letting someone else have her job, why should she quit if that is her calling. She deserves to remain employed she didnt violate any employment rules by winning....
Everyday we have a CHOICE to work or not. Most would say its the consequences of not working and paying for the american dream that keeps them hitting the alarm clock and getting up.
Good Luck to you so do I deserve also
Take care
Hum, TheGameGrl, I don't understand your last two paragraphs, as they weren't comparing apples to apples, but rather an apple to an orange. The woman who is still working had to. How could one retire when: 1. You only win $1,000,000 gross; 2. The win is reduced to $650, 000 net after the fed taxes were taken out within the following 12 months (good thing since she bought and lives in Tennessee which I think still didn't tax lottery earnings the year she won, as they don't currently!); 3. You probably gave your son $120,000+ of that net amount to have rescued him from bankruptcy, foreclosure, and probably gave him $10K+ for his checking account so he didn't fall into further despair; and 4. You probably spent another $80,000+ on the mentioned grandchild's 4 years bachelors degree purchase.
Consequently, her apx. $450,000 remainder ain't much to live on. Hopefully, she found a way to insure three-fourths of it to make 4.5% to 5% per year on it (before paying taxes on the interest). Maybe she owned her own newer and well maintained/reliable home and car at the time that she won, so she was therefore able to keep expenses somewhat low, and has been smart enough to keep travel rare, or to a minimum, and within her own country). Even so, by this year, she's probably wishing that she had a few million dollars net in order to be able to "retire" ... working is often such a miserable experience due to the uncontrolled folks one is forced to interact with daily. That's why probably 50% of adults play the lottery at least monthly.
Congratulations to both winners -- who won VERY different sized lottery jackpot amounts -- approximate net $8,970,000 vs. net $650,000.
That's how you do it, keep a low profile (well, except for the part where they talk to the media about how they've won and bought 3 vehicles and a vacation house immediately after they won).
If I were to win tonight with $70m I'd allot some winnings to my dad, some to my two brothers (the oldest one who takes care of the youngest) and some donations. Obviously I'd keep a fair share but in the first year I'd get decent vehicle but not much else and then later on get a house. I wouldn't really tell anyone else and think I could get by without being too obvious, especially if I split the winnings up among other relatives who could benefit and I think we could all keep one another grounded on not spending too crazily.
It is good to see some positive stories, it seems like only the negative ones get the attention. It's important to stay grounded and not forget who you are. I'd probably pay off my house and get a new vehicle for my wife(her's is 8 years old). My vehicle is only 2 years old and paid for, because when my other car was rear ended and totaled, I took the $5000 the insurance company gave me and made a down payment on the cheapest new car in town, then used money from the injury settlement to make a big payment. Between this and paying more than the minimum note, I had the car paid off in a year.
If nobody bothered us, we'd probably stay in our house, maybe fix it up a little, and just enjoy life, not living too lavishly, and not flaunting it.
good looking out .. all i know is that a SEAL kicks azz .. and i upted the number too! now the reporters really need to be scared should i win .. one day .. didn't tonight
Great lottery story.... When I win no one in my family will know except my husband....we are telling no one including our mothers....I know it sounds bad, but if they found out it would be a complete mess!!! They will get money/gifts monthly but not extremely large amounts...don't want them to suspect that something is up.....not trying to be cruel, but everyone knows there own family!!!!
You pretty much have to keep a low profile if you win big bucks in Tennessee.
There's an army of slack-jawed, mullet-headed morons just north of us.
Now ridge i thought you liked tiggs lol.
Congratulations to this Powerball winner. I didn't know why Bobbi continues to work on projects.
I think he's a hell of a guy and I'm a pretty big old boy but you let a bunch of them little mullet-heads get the drop on ya and they're on ya like a pack o' rats. Cain't never tell what they're commencin to do, specially them ones with them eyes lookin every whuchaway.
Sounds like their smart enough to let someone who is more experienced and qualified to handle
the money; and not to go overboard with their spendings. Now, as for the conspiracy theory; I'm
sure that the lottery officials launched an investigation as soon as they discovered that the store
owners had won the ticket. if there had been foul play it would have been discovered, and we
would have been reading and posting about the Tennessee store owners who tried to cheat
a patron out of a jackpot.
WHO SAYS THE LOTTERY IS A CURSE?