Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 1, 1994 TAG: 9403010044
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARA LEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PEARISBURG LENGTH: Medium
Every parking spot outside the Pearisburg In and Out Mart was full Monday evening as folks lined up to buy their lottery tickets at the same convenience store where Joe Stafford bought his $1.66 million Pick 6 ticket.
Stafford, who works at the Hoechst-Celanese plant, as do many in this small town in Giles County, will receive $58,087 annually, after taxes, for 20 years. He and his wife, Betsy, who also works at the fiber plant, told lottery administrators they plan to retire. They declined to talk to reporters.
The In and Out, sandwiched between a boarded-up pizza place and a Dairy Queen on Main Street, has a lot o' lotto customers.
Night clerk Marie Ferrell said when the lottery gets really hot, 75 percent of the customers buy tickets. Folks who come in twice a week to buy tickets, as Stafford did, are average.
This evening, it's running about half-and-half, and most of the lottery customers fit Stafford's profile: about 60 or so, driving pickups. They say hello warmly as they stand in front of the sign that orders:
Gambling!
Profanity!
Proper conduct required at all times.
Phyliss Horn, the clerk who often waited on Stafford, said, "Every Friday he gets his tickets. He always gets gas. He'll leave his tickets, $10 worth, on the counter while he goes out to his truck."
Ten dollars buys 10 series of numbers, two cards full of rows of fill-in-the bubbles. The numbers that won - 1, 3, 6, 16, 20 and 31 - were ones he picked each time. "He's been playing those same numbers ever since I've been here," said Ferrell, who has worked there two years.
Charlie Monk spent $10 on Lotto and some gold Pick 3 tickets. "Wasn't that great, somebody won it from the county," he said. "I think a lot of people have been waiting for that."
The most Monk - who plays daily - has won is $65.
A boy came in with his mother. "What are you doing here, Mr. Monk?" he asked with surprise.
"I'm getting a lottery ticket," Monk answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
A younger man bought a Black Jack scratch-off card. He shook his head and stuck out his lips to say he didn't play much - "A couple of times a week."
A man with gray hair, running out the door after buying his tickets, said of Stafford, "I know that fellow! I'm trying to run him down now, see if he'd donate a little bit."
by CNB