#powerball PLEASANT HILL COUPLE CLAIMS $1 MILLION POWERBALL PRIZE

November 14th, 2015

Iowa's latest $1 million Powerball winners said their lucky purchase was a spur-of-the-moment decision on the way out of a local convenience store.

"I was in a hurry because I was on the way to mass," Richard Martin of Pleasant Hill said as he and his wife claimed their prize Monday at lottery headquarters in Clive. "I stopped in there to hit the ATM and then on the way out the door, I thought to myself, 'Well, I'll just go ahead and buy a lottery ticket.' It was a quick pick."

And then he didn't think about the ticket again until his football watching was done on Sunday and he decided to check his lottery numbers.

"Late Sunday night, I jokingly said to my wife, 'Let me check this lottery ticket to see if we won or not, you might not have to go to work tomorrow,'" he said. "I couldn't believe that it was actually real. And I yelled upstairs for my wife to come down to make sure I had entered the numbers correctly."

His wife, Elizabeth Martin, said she also was in disbelief.

"I just stood there and looked at him and said, 'What are you doing? What's wrong?'" she said.

And then she keyed in the numbers on the lottery website as well.

"And then I looked at it. It just didn't register," she said. "I couldn't even believe it."

Richard, 43, who drives a truck delivering flooring products to stores in Iowa, and Elizabeth, 40, a receptionist at a health clinic, said they then stayed up until about 4:30 a.m. Monday in excitement and disbelief, just staring at each other. For safekeeping, Richard said he kept the winning ticket on the table beside him, with a baseball bat in his hand.

The couple is in the process of closing on a new house, so they have long-term plans for their winnings.

"The majority of it will be put away for retirement," Richard said.

But they have some small mad-money projects as well: Their teen-age daughter wants her hair done and their teen-age son wants a new scooter.

Richard Martin bought their $1 million-winning ticket at the Git-N-Go convenience store, 4164 Easton Blvd. in Des Moines.

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