Special to the Times-News/NC Education Lottery
RALEIGH – If Thursday had been a typical morning for Charles Browne of Hendersonville, he would not have ended up on a 500-mile round trip to Raleigh to collect a $1 million lottery prize.
Browne typically begins his day with a stop at Norm’s Minit Mart on Kanuga Road in Hendersonville where he gets a Red Bull and his favorite lottery ticket.
“I will usually play Extreme Cash,” Browne said. “They were out of it so I said let’s go with my second favorite game and that’s how I ended up with the $1 million ticket.”
Charles Browne had a Virginia Lottery ticket in his possession for months without realizing it was worth $100,000. The Bloxom man bought the Cash 5 ticket for the Oct. 6 drawing at Foods Great Valu, located at 6277 Cleveland St. in Chincoteague.
“Maybe today is a lucky day for me,” he recalled thinking when he bought it.
He then stuck the ticket in his wallet and forgot about it. It wasn’t until late January that the retired sheet metal worker saw the ticket, checked the winning numbers, and discovered he’d matched all five winning numbers.
“It was kind of hard to believe,” he told lottery officials.