A quick stopover for some gas and a Coke on Friday won $10,000 for Myrna Taunton of Emporia.
Taunton matched five numbers in Saturday’s Hot Lotto drawing with a ticket she’d bought at a gas station in Osage City. She and her husband, Phil, were on their way to a weekend at Council Grove Lake after dropping off some hay at their daughter’s house in Pomona.
“I had no idea I’d even won until this morning,” Myrna Taunton told Lotto officials on Monday afternoon. “When I woke up, something made me remember I had the ticket, so I looked on the Lottery’s Web site. I was talking to a friend on the phone as I was checking my tickets. ... I said to my friend ‘Oh my goodness, I’ve just won $10,000.’”
Phil Taunton didn’t find out until he got home from work at the railroad. He knew something was up when his wife walked into his home office singing.
“At my age, you don’t really like surprises that much,” he said with a chuckle Tuesday. “You think someone’s sick or something.”
Would he take this surprise?
“Oh, yeah.”
The winning ticket was purchased at Casey’s General Store in Osage City.
Phil Taunton also writes a column on the outdoors for The Emporia Gazette. Both Tauntons enjoy playing golf and Myrna Taunton told lottery officials she planned to buy her husband a new set of golf clubs, then put the rest of the money into savings.