ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 5, 1996 TAG: 9604050107
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: ROBERT LITTLE STAFF WRITER
Mary and Phillip Stokes seem to keep finding their happiness in grocery stores.
They met in one, 41 years of marriage ago. Stokes made his living in one.
And last Friday, they struck it rich in one.
Of course the Norfolk couple didn't realize it until Saturday night, when their six Lotto numbers scrolled across the television screen. The ticket Mary Stokes bought at the Farm Fresh won them $13.3 million, half the Virginia Lottery's fourth-largest jackpot.
Less than 24 hours later, Stokes quit the grocery business for good.
``I called up and said `That's it,''' said Stokes, 61, formerly employed with Acosta Sales in Norfolk. He met his wife in the Ocean View A&P in 1952, while he was a stock clerk there, and worked in the food business for 44 years. ``Didn't take any thought at all to quit,'' he said.
That's because the two had been thinking about it for years. Or ``daydreaming,'' as Stokes put it. The couple have played $20 worth of Lotto tickets a week since the games started, never winning more than about 50 bucks at a time.
``We never really expected to win it all, just to win something, maybe,'' Mary Stokes said Thursday, during a news conference called after the two cashed their winning ticket. Also 61, she'll give up her baby-sitting work once school lets out. ``Of course we wanted to win; that's why we bought the tickets.''
In store for them now: A first-class trip to Hawaii. And a new vehicle. ``I've got to get a car or truck or something,'' Stokes said,'' because I had to turn in the one I was using for the company.''
LENGTH: Short : 39 linesby CNB