Thirty-one instant millionaires
Come By Chance refinery co-workers presented with $60M cheque
Thirty-one oil refinery workers - including twin brothers, a married couple and a father and son - became instant millionaires Wednesday when the Atlantic Lottery Corp. presented them with a cheque worth a whopping $60 million.
The winners and about 300 jubilant family members gathered at a convention centre in St. John’s to receive the huge jackpot after the group of boilermakers bought the lucky Lotto Max ticket last week.
The group, assembled two rows deep on a stage and all wearing black t-shorts, described their shock when they found out they won the jackpot - the biggest yet in Atlantic Canada and one of the top five in Canada.
“I had a $60-million ticket in my hand and I was afraid to lay it down. I was afraid to walk away from it,” Sherry Moore Hickey said about the call she got from a colleague at about 4:30 Saturday morning telling her he thought their group won.
“I had to contact everyone because there’s 31 in our group ... They would say silly things like, ‘Are you drinking?’ I told them all the same story - we’re millionaires. This is not a joke. We are millionaires!”’ Moore Hickey, the sole woman in the group, said 26 of them plan to return to work at the Come By Chance refinery, despite the massive win. Five of the winners, who range in age from 24 to 63, retired almost immediately after getting word that they would get about $1.9 million each. For Moore Hickey, that’s multiplied by two since her husband Lee also kicked in $5 for a group purchase of $155 worth of tickets. Standing on stage with the rest of his colleagues, Lee Hickey joked that his work mates were now known as the “A Team.”
“I got the richest crew in the country,” he said to big laughs from the crowd. “It’s just overwhelming and a great start for everyone’s life.”
Eight of the winners are from the small community of Avondale, with three of them living on the same street in the town of 600.
Some of the winners say they plan to pay off mortgages, invest in their kids’ education funds or buy new cars.
Moore Hickey said for now, she plans on sticking with her job as a boilermaker at the refinery and may become semiretired.
“We came to Tank 219 as a team and just happened to win $60 million, but we’re committed to it,” she said. “This is our lives.”