Workers celebrated at a Southern California nursing home when word spread that a co-worker had a winning ticket for this week’s $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot.
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The Tennessee Lottery held a news conference on Friday recognizing the couple from Munford who purchased the winning Powerball ticket. In Florida, winners have just 180 days to claim their winnings – half that if they want the lump sum.
The jackpot from Wednesday night’s drawing will be split by winners in Tennessee (Robinson family), California and Florida. Lottery officials in those states have yet to confirm or identify the winners.
Tiffany Robinson said she wants to pay off her student loans.
The couple, who have a son and daughter, chose to appear on TV first before claiming the jackpot, on the advice of their lawyer.
About 30 minutes later, the big winner’s kids called and told her to check her numbers. Lisa works in a Memphis dermatologist’s office.
The couple bought four tickets at Naifeh’s Food Mart, a grocery store one block from their home at 6:56 p.m. on Wednesday night. “I really didn’t feel like stopping that night, but I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll stop.’ I came home, and I wasn’t feeling good, and I handed the tickets to her and said, ‘I’m going to go lay down”‘.
Robinson said he and his wife were excited about their winnings but were “a little scared” about their future. He spoke with the family Friday morning as they were in New York City, but he recalled the moments prior to hearing the big news.
“We are going to hope that a lot of the press is going to respect our privacy one we get through talking to a few people”, Lisa Robinson also said.
Robinson did say that he had signed the back of the ticket, showing his ownership of it.
The winners bought their tickets in the small working class town of Munford, Tennessee; in the quiet Los Angeles suburb of Chino Hills; and at a supermarket in affluent Melbourne Beach, on Florida’s Space Coast. “You need to check these numbers, ‘” John Robinson said.
John Robinson said he was nervous after revealing his identity on the “Today” show.
If no winning tickets had been sold on Wednesday the jackpot would have rolled over again, pushing the annuitized prize to an estimated $2 billion, with a cash value of $1.24 billion.
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Levy, who did not see the winning numbers himself, described the victor as a 62-year-old married mom of seven kids – six of them nurses themselves.
