Sydney school teacher wins $1-million QEII prize

SYDNEY — A Cape Breton school teacher who won more than $1 million returned to the classroom the next day.

On Wednesday, Shaun Crowe became the island’s latest lottery millionaire, taking home $1,073,062.50 in the latest Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre Home Lottery.

A Sydney resident originally from New Waterford, Crowe was announced as the winner of the hospital foundation’s 50-50 draw for the spring campaign.

However, instead of heading to Halifax where the top winners were collecting the keys to a lakefront dream home, oceanside cottage and luxury car, Crowe went to work at Whitney Pier Memorial Middle School, declining multiple media requests to talk about his windfall.

MILLIONS TO HELP A MILLION

Tanya MacLean, vice-president of communications and marketing for the QEII

Foundation, said the biannual lottery is a key fundraiser for the hospital, which sees nearly one million patients from across Atlantic Canada walk through their doors every year.

“We raise over $4 million net through this program, and that’s twice a year. So each lottery — we have one in the spring and one in the fall — so it’s incredibly important.”

In the past year, nearly 11,000 people from Cape Breton were treated at the state-of-the-art Halifax medical facility, including 2,636 from Inverness County, 1,346 from Richmond County and 756 from Victoria County.

Another, 316 people from Prince Edward Island, 6,398 from New Brunswick, 1,030 from Newfoundland and Labrador and 1,964 from outside of Atlantic Canada also entered the doors.

In addition to Crowe, Nicole Dugas of Bedford took home the top prize of a show home, plus $75,000, while Fergusons Cove resident Cathy Hanrahan-Cox won the cottage and $25,000. Bedford’s Barry Banfield gets to choose between the keys to a luxury car or $200,000 in cash.