Local couple discovers it pays to be tidy

Written by Patty Decker Tuesday, 06 April 2010 18:22

Hillsboro residents Glenda and Tom Stoppel appear pretty relaxed these days with an extra $10,000 in the bank. An extra $10,000 might not be a life-altering amount of money, but for Tom and Glenda Stoppel of Hillsboro, the experience of winning it was priceless.

What made the win more fun, Tom said, was how it happened.

“We were getting ready to go to my dad’s 81st birthday,” he said.

While waiting to leave, Tom decided to go through a little basket where he keeps his billfold, keys and, on this occasion, a 5-month-old “Hot Lotto” ticket.

“I bought the ticket Oct. 25,” he said, “for the Oct. 28 drawing.”

With a few minutes to spare, Tom went to the Hot Lotto Web site to check the winning numbers. When he looked at his ticket and then at the numbers on the computer screen, all five numbers matched.

He looked at the ticket again, then looked across at the date on the ticket. All five numbers still matched, except the “hot” number.

“What am I not looking at right?” he asked himself.

When Glenda came over to him, ready to leave, Tom asked her to check the numbers.

All five numbers matched.

“Not convinced,” he said, “I gave it to the clerk at Ampride (to check).”

After placing the ticket into a machine for verification, she said, “Good God Almighty, it’s $10,000!”

Tom said the clerk was as excited, if not more so, then he and Glenda were about winning.

Convinced they had won the money, Tom said he has one year from the date of the drawing to claim the cash prize.

Tom said he had thought about throwing the ticket away without checking the numbers.

“If it’s thrown away, I wouldn’t know the difference,” he said, “but I’m glad I didn’t.”

As for spending the cash, Tom and Glenda have narrowed down their options to two.

One option would be to visit their German foreign exchange student, with whom they have kept in contact for more than six years.

Another option would be a trip to the eastern U.S. to see the spectacular fall foliage.

Glenda said they were leaning toward Germany.

Unlike multi-state “Powerball,” the “Hot Lotto” game has fewer numbers to choose from, making the odds of winning less astronomical, Tom said.

Had Tom picked the “hot” number correctly, too, the prize was $5.3 million.

“Now that would have been life-altering,” he said.