THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 4, 1996 TAG: 9601040356
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
Every Monday morning, employees of Chesapeake's Finance Department would approach Louella Vess' cubicle to ask if they'd won the lottery.
Vess, an accountant technician who plays the numbers for the office pool every Wednesday at lunch, rarely had good news.
Week after week, the employees would each shell out a buck. In at least three years of trying, they had managed to win a grand total of $57 and an occasional free ticket.
But finally, all that patience paid off.
On Tuesday, Vess gathered her co-workers in the conference room to spring a big surprise: Fourteen of them had won $100,000 in the state's Cash 5 lottery.
The triumph actually happened Friday, but only Vess and a co-worker knew because the winning ticket was left in an office drawer over the weekend. They managed to keep it secret until they could get everyone together in the fifth-floor office at City Hall and break the news.
``There was more screaming in that room than I care to describe,'' said Joseph Sibley, the city's director of finance and one of the 14 winners.
Three men and 11 women claimed the prize. After taxes, each brought home $4,857.15. The state got $285.71 per winner; the feds, $2,000.
One winner has yet to receive her share. She's on vacation in Vermont. Co-workers say she doesn't even know she won.
Tuesday, on their first day back at work in the new year, all the winners took a half-day of annual leave to pick up their checks in Newport News. After lunch, they made their way back to City Hall. But by the time they got to Cedar Road, it was 4:55 p.m. and almost time to go home. So they did.
Sibley and others were adamant that this not been seen as a city-sponsored activity, even though the $100,000 fake check they received from state lottery officials was made out to the Finance Department. It was thumb-tacked to a cubicle wall on Wednesday.
Vess, the only employee who buys the group's tickets, has had lottery luck on her own in the past: Two years ago, she won $5,000 playing Pick 4. She has won $500 four times playing Pick 3.
``I'm their lucky charm,'' she said.
So does the Finance Department in Virginia's fastest-growing city know something that we don't?
``Just pure luck,'' said Sibley. ``Pure luck.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/The Virginian-Pilot
The lucky 14 work in Chesapeake's Finance Department. Eleven of them
are, from left: Joyce Kessler, David Crouch, Audrey Shands, Lisa
Crute, Joseph Sibley, Karen Creef, Joyce Peterson, Faye Watson,
Lavera Lawrence, Louella Vess - who plays the numbers each Wednesday
for the group - and Sam Solomon.
KEYWORDS: LOTTERY WINNERS by CNB