Secret’s out
Shelly and Jim Campbell take home million-dollar lotto windfall
Being cheesed off at Charlottetown’s infamous crows helped a Tyne Valley woman win a $1 million.
Shelly Campbell was announced Wednesday as the winner of the Nov. 25 Atlantic 49 draw.
Shelly, a special events decorator and curator of the Bideford Parsonage Museum, said she bought the lottery ticket while in a particularly frustrated mood one day in Charlottetown. She’d been working to decorate Province House for Christmas and left to find the city’s birds had made a mess of her car. On her way home she stopped in Summerside to buy a car wash – and happened to buy an add-on lottery ticket.
“I’ve got to say that now I’ve probably stopped hating the crows because without them I probably wouldn’t have been here,” she said.
“We’re saying ‘thank God for the crows,’ now,” added Jim Campbell, her husband. Shelly and Jim kept the news of their winning under tight wraps for about a month, until they finally let their two children in on the secret.
They also told a few close friends, some of whom went to Wednesday’s announcement to support them.
“I thought she was joking because she jokes about that a lot,” said Irene MacLean, thinking to when Shelly told her about the win.
Once it finally sunk in, and she was convinced Shelly wasn’t pulling an elaborate joke, everyone was excited for them, she added.
“It couldn’t happen to a better person. They’re very downto-earth people,” she said.
As for what they plan to do with their winnings, the Campbells already have most of it earmarked for specific purposes. They plan to help out their children, make some investments and contribute to some charities and non-profit organizations that are close to their hearts. “I’m hoping everything I do with it will benefit others,” said Shelly.