Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 2, 1990                   TAG: 9004020032
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LOTTO LUCK WON'T LAND ON THIS TINA

It wouldn't take much to improve this woman's luck.

In February, she was minding her business. She was studying at Baptist International School of Theology in Maryland and came home to Staple Street in Radford during spring break.

On Feb. 24, Tina L. Saunders won $1,678,000 in the Virginia Lotto.

That doesn't sound like such bad luck. I could deal with a check worth $63,840 every year for 20 years; how about you?

And sure, it was good luck for Tina L. Saunders, 26, of Glenvar.

But for the Tina L. Saunders, 30, of Radford that we're talking about here, it wasn't good luck; it wasn't even no luck. It was bad luck.

"Word spread that Tina Saunders won the lottery and that she was black," said the Radford Saunders, who fits the name and the race and the region.

"A lot of people thought it was me. I've been getting harassed, practically mauled on the streets," she said. "I can't wear anything new without people asking me if I bought it with lottery money."

She's been asked if she'll travel around the world.

She's had people put the arm on her for worthy causes.

"I went to the store one Saturday and so many people approached me, I haven't been back since," she said.

This Tina Saunders, the New River variety, did play the lottery for the first time in a long time a couple of weeks ago. She won $11.

The divorced mother of two isn't sharing.

"No, I'm not giving any money. I don't have any money to give," she said.

Within the past couple of weeks, the pressure to donate and to share has slacked off some for New River Saunders.

The streak of bad luck hasn't eased, though.

A week ago, Saunders the loser became Saunders the lucky - sort of.

She was stabbed six times in the chest, the arm, the leg and the face while sleeping at a home in the Wake Forest section of Montgomery County.

Her injuries weren't life-threatening but they were serious enough to require an ambulance ride to Montgomery Regional Hospital. The ambulance got stuck in the mud, she said.

But the ambulance wasn't the only thing that got dragged through the mud, she said.

She frets about her reputation.

Marneeta Cobbs of Christiansburg, who was accused of the stabbing, found her husband and Tina Saunders - the non-millionaire - together, and stabbed them both, according to the county Sheriff's Department.

Tina Saunders knows the implication, and she claims it's all wrong.

"It's just one thing after another," she said last week. "I've got nothing but hard luck."

And 40 stitches. And no lottery money, a hospital bill and a lot of worthy organizations looking for handouts.

"I'm down but not out. I think I just won't leave the house anymore."

If you had Tina L. Saunders' luck - the losing Tina Saunders, that is - would you blame her?