Friday, July 11th was a remarkable day for Terry Boase of Red Deer. It began as a noisy, boisterous holiday with his grandchildren, and ended with the discovery of a $15 million-dollar lottery win on SUPER 7 for Terry and 25 of his co-workers.
Terry and his wife had grandchildren visiting from Houston, so they loaded up the visitors and their Alberta cousins and took all seven grandkids to Calaway Park in Calgary.
After a full day at the amusement park, the whole group headed back to Terry’s home in Red Deer for a sleepover. Needing a brief break from the action, Terry slipped upstairs to check his lottery tickets. Terry is part of a 26-member lottery group from the Johns Manville plant in Innisfail, who buy tickets together when lottery Jackpots go over $10 million. That Friday, the SUPER 7 Jackpot sat at $15 million.
A few minutes later, Terry’s very good day got even better. “I went downstairs and told my wife we’d won the jackpot. She literally fell over – right on the floor!” Terry recalled.
His first phone call was to Brent Rempel, another member of the group. Brent immediately connected to the Western Canada Lottery Corporation website and confirmed that the group’s ticket was a winner. From there, word spread quickly to the other group members.
“Most didn’t believe me at first,” laughed Terry. “One of the women I called said “Terry Boase, if this is a joke I’m coming to Red Deer to hurt you badly.’”
There are 26 members in the winning lottery group, making each member’s share over half a million dollars. Terry had three shares, putting his piece of the jackpot at more than $1.5 million. With that much money, Terry will move up his planned retirement date.
As for the other winners, “We’re a pretty level-headed bunch,” Terry said. “We’ve worked together for 20 years. There will be some nice vacations, a few new vehicles where they’re needed, and lots of home renos. The rest of the group will all keep working.”
Co-winner Cam Beaton added, “The prize money just makes the road a little smoother.”
The winning ticket was purchased at Sobey’s South Red Deer, at 2110 – 50th Avenue in Red Deer.
