When a Bevier woman saw her husband and son waiving for her to get off the telephone, she quickly dismissed it. Kathy Liebhart was used to her husband, Wade, and son, Trevor, telling her about the “next thing” they wanted to buy, so the mother-of-two automatically “turned around motioned to them, ‘We can’t afford it.’”

That’s when Wade “got a big poster board with a marker and wrote, ‘You’re going to want to talk to me!’”

Kathy was not expecting to learn that Wade and Trevor had just uncovered a $25,000 top prize on a Missouri Lottery “Platinum Payout” Scratchers ticket.

“We were about to bust,” joked Wade, remembering the moment he was trying to get his wife’s attention.

Wade credits a stop for gasoline at Ugo’s Bait House, 300 N. Macon St. in Macon, as the catalyst for obtaining the winning ticket.

“I had remembered I had a ‘Platinum’ ticket in my pocket, a $2 winner,” Wade recalled, noting that he “didn’t want to go in” the store, so he asked his son to trade in the game for “another ticket just like that.”

After uncovering the prize amount while sitting in their vehicle, Trevor asked his dad, “Is it real?” Wade recalls laughing and reminding his son that he was the one that “brought it (ticket) out of the store,” so it had to be legitimate.

The Liebharts plan to use the windfall to pay bills and purchase at least one item Wade and Trevor have been eyeing – a skid steer.

As for Kathy, she reminisced that her husband’s been “telling me for years that he’s going to win the lottery,” but she just never believed it would come to fruition.

“For any non-believers out there, it can happen!” exclaimed Wade, adding that the prize money is “a stress reliever for sure.”