“Fabulous Five” West Virginia co-workers share $1 million prize

Drawing Date: 1/9/2015

January 14, 2015 - West Virginia Lottery Director John Musgrave introduced the “Fabulous Five,” a group of five co-workers from the Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority, as the state’s latest winners of a $1 million Mega Millions prize at a press conference in Charleston, Wednesday.

The group, which was playing the lottery as an office pool for the first time, consists of Brenda Rader of South Charleston, Carla Curry of Marmet, Jordan Williams of Shrewsbury, Deborah Rutherford of St. Albans, and Carolyn Charnock of Charleston.

“What a wonderful way to start off 2015. We could not be happier for these ladies,” Musgrave said. “Calendar year 2014 was a record setting year for West Virginia Lottery players with an incredible 13 tickets valued at $1 million or more sold in our state and hopefully this is an indication that 2015 will be memorable as well.”

Rader purchased their lucky ticket, which matched five numbers from the January 9, 2015 Mega Millions drawing, at One Stop 101 in South Charleston. Had they paid an extra $1 for the Megaplier option, their prize of $1 million would have increased to $5 million, because the Megaplier number for Friday was 5x. One Stop will receive a sales bonus of $10,000 for selling the ticket. Ironically, the lucky ticket was purchased at exactly 1:01 p.m. on Wednesday.     

“I am just glad that I played and that we won,” Rader said. “When the jackpot gets high I usually play twice a week, but this was the first time that we ever purchased lottery tickets as an office pool. We were just happy to win something.”

The group of co-workers each contributed $5 for a total purchase of 25 tickets.

Williams, a December graduate of WVU-Tech, made her first student loan payment on the same day she gave Rader her $5 for the tickets. “I will not be making any more loan payments or paying another day of interest now, that’s for sure,” Williams said.

Curry said that she had played the lottery off and on, but had never won anything of note. “You always wonder if it is for real and now I know that it is!” Rutherford added, “Anyone can win. It is just amazing!”