Split ticket: Powerball win in Melbourne Beach
MELBOURNE BEACH — “Did you win?”
Those three words easily could have been the most-repeated question in Brevard County on Thursday morning after word got out as the sun rose that one of three Powerball-winning tickets was sold in a Melbourne Beach Publix.
It didn’t take long before the network-news trucks and excited bystanders rolled into the store’s parking lot on State Road A1A, repeating a variation on the morning’s popular theme.
“Who won?”
The early-morning shocker capped a week of coast-to-coast lotterymania as the 44-state game’s jackpot rose and rose and rose to a record $1.58 billion — roughly enough to run Brevard County government’s budget for all of 2016 and half of 2017.
The three winning tickets are worth $528 million each — other winning tickets were sold outside Anaheim, California and near Memphis, Tennessee. Winning numbers from last night’s drawing were 4-8-19-27-34 and Powerball 10. The lottery also created 12 new millionaires in Florida, including a $2 million winner from Lake
Mary, who matched all the numbers but the Powerball with a filled-out ticket he found abandoned on a store counter, state lottery officials reported.
So far no winners have come forward, though rumors have floated about a group of factory workers in Melbourne who might have teamed up for the win. Or was it just one? Neighbors in Melbourne Beach also gossiped about someone in a housing development several miles from the Publix where loud partying could be heard.
A well-heeled beachfront resident? Or a gardener?
It is not even a sure thing that the winner is from Brevard, since the store sits along State Road A1A, one of the most traveled highways in the state.
“I’m hoping it’s somebody I know,” said Trudy Harden, a 16-year resident of Melbourne Beach. Harden, however, did get two Powerball numbers on her ticket and added that she planned to re-invest her grand total of $20 winnings in more tickets.
John Koontz, a front service worker at the Melbourne Beach Publix, had just stepped out of his car to show up for work when someone he knew asked him the Big Question.
“They’re all excited. One of the locals just asked me was it true that the winning ticket was sold here,” Koontz said, lining up one of the store scooters in the cart area. “Can you imagine this is happening here at our little store?”
Inside the store, the management team readied for a visit from the corporate office. Publix officials in Jacksonville were mum, but the Associated Press reported the store would receive $100,000.
“We are excited for the customer or customers who purchased the winning ticket,” said Dwaine Stevens, a Publix spokesman, adding that the grocery chain would refrain from speaking further about the lottery.
Mary Braun of North Carolina took a selfie with friends in front of Publix.
“I hope whoever won it feeds a lot of people who need to be fed and things like that ,” Braun said. “Good luck to whoever won it.”
Kerrie Carter drove to four different states to buy Powerball tickets.
“I’m so happy for the people that won,” Carter, of Melbourne Beach, said, standing in front of Publix.
She’d bought her fourth ticket just a few blocks away from where the winning ticket had been sold. “I love that they get to share the pot and that one person isn’t going to win it.”
Freddie Sepulvava wishes —don’t we all— that it was him.
“I come here every week,” said the Orlando fisherman.
Usually, he’s casting out for sport fish. But he also hopes to hook millions — maybe even a billion — in the Powerball.
“I always buy a ticket here, I never get nothing, though,” he said with a chuckle.