KWCH - Kansas News and Weather - Great Bend Gets Great Excitement Over Powerball Win

Great Bend Gets Great Excitement Over Powerball Win

(GREAT BEND, Kan.)

 You find a lot of numbers at the grocery store.  $8, Aisle 12, 14 cents. 22 pounds of meat, and a price tag for $2.90 (or 29 if you move the decimal point).

Those numbers added up to Don Damon's winning Powerball ticket.

He bought it at the Customer Service counter at the Dillon's off 10th street in Great Bend.

There's a lot of excitement in the grocery store. It will receive $10,000 for selling the winning ticket.

And it seems all 15,000 people in town now want to buy a ticket at this lucky counter.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe this is the lucky store," said Gretchen Deighton. William Dill bought several tickets, saying "we don't win much, but sometimes we win a little."

And sometimes you win a lot. The jackpot winner worked as a truck driver for Orscheln's farm and store for many years before he retired.

His wife worked three jobs. One of them was at Central Kansas Medical Center, where Brad Holliday is the Human Resources manager. "There was that moment of doubt - and could it really be one of our own that won this thing?" he said.

Kathleen Damon won't be coming back to the cafeteria at CKMC Monday. Holliday doesn't blame her.

"I can tell you that if it was me," he said, "I'd probably have to give real serious though to whether I'd be putting in my notice and going off to buy my own private retreat somewhere."

Most people in Great Bend believe the winning ticket changed the Damons' life. They hope the next one will change theirs.

Eyewitness News spoke with Ken Damon, Don's brother. He says two people already asked his wife, Don's sister-in-law, for money. One wanted a short-term loan for $10,000. The other wanted $40,000.