(AUSTIN) – Diana Valencia of Slaton asked a store clerk to choose a scratch-off ticket for her last week because, as she said, “my luck hasn’t been good lately.” The clerk chose a Weekly Grand ticket, and it made all the difference.
The clerk first went for an Instant Bingo scratch-off, but Valencia protested saying she didn’t like it. The clerk then pulled out a Weekly Grand.
“I took my one ticket back to the office with me, closed the door and scratched it,” she said. “Once I saw what it said, I ran to the business manager’s office and made her look at the ticket. She told me to ‘get that fake ticket off my desk, I don’t have time for this today.’ Then she took a good look at it and saw what it said.”
Valencia is a training coordinator for a juvenile facility in Post. She and her co-workers are a tight-knit group, she said. In fact, had she chosen to eat Chinese food with them at a later hour, as her co-worker asked, she would not have gone to the store and bought the ticket at that most meaningful moment.
“She asked me why I wasn’t screaming,” she said. “I told her I couldn’t scream because I was in shock. After I told my boss and managed to pull myself together, I told them I wouldn’t be at the office on Friday because I was going to Austin. I called my boyfriend, Jaime, who was in Arlington, and told him to hurry up and get here so we could get on the road.”
Valencia and her companion left Slaton at 2 a.m. and drove all night to arrive at Lottery headquarters by 8 a.m.
The Weekly Grand prize she collected pays out $1,000 per week for 20 years for a total of $1,040,000.
“I’m definitely going to keep working, I can’t just sit at home,” she said. “I’m going to help my family, too. My daughter has two small children and I want to help her, as well as my other four grandchildren. I also want to help my parents with their medication expenses. They’re both in their ‘80s now. My dad still does some welding and goes to his shop every day, and my mom just retired from the housekeeping job she’d had for many years at a nursing home. Two of my sisters have been paying for their medications, and I told them yesterday that I plan to take on some of that to give them breathing room. They’ve been great.”
Valencia says her plans also include moving into a larger apartment and paying off her bills.
“Ms. Valencia has put her family first, ensuring that her parents have their medication needs met and that her grandchildren’s necessities are also provided for,” said Texas Lottery Commission Executive Director Anthony J. Sadberry. “Weekly Grand has been one of the most popular games ever offered by the Texas Lottery. The version on which Ms. Valencia won is the 20th issue of Weekly Grand, and this is the first of the game’s four top prizes to be claimed.”
Valencia purchased the ticket at the Allsup’s #61, which is located at 13th and Broadway in Post. The store is eligible to receive a bonus of $10,000 for selling this ticket.
Tomorrow’s Mega Millions® jackpot is worth an estimated $88 million. Wednesday’s Lotto Texas® jackpot is worth an estimated $16 million.
