$326M FOOT LONG!
NY couple’s Subway run a lottery winner
A hankering for Subway and fear of bad weather prompted a retired Sullivan County educator and his wife to dine on gasstation sandwiches — then buy the most valuable lottery ticket in state history.
Harold Diamond, 80, drew the sole winning ticket in a $326 million Mega Millions game at a Valero gas station in Middletown on Nov. 4, lottery officials disclosed Monday.
The state identified Harold and Carol Diamond of Wurtsboro during an event at that Valero. They arrived in a limo, were cheered by onlookers and handed a giant bouquet of roses.
They took the lumpsum payout of $197.45 million after taxes.
Harold Diamond had just cast his ballot on Election Day when he and Carol, 75, a retired math teacher, headed out for dinner.
They chose a Subway sandwich shop at Valero.
“If we didn’t stop at the Subway at the particular night and day, we wouldn’t be standing here today, ” said Harold, who re tired as principal of George L. Cook Elementary School in Monticello in 1995. “So I have to thank her for making me stop here.”
Carol admitted nudging her hubby toward the eatery.
“I knew we were getting near this place, and I said, ‘Why don’t we just go to this Subway, and then we don’t have to go as far as Middletown, you know, with the weather and everything,’ ” she recalled.
Harold said the ticket was a spurofthemoment buy.
“This is Carol’s favorite spot, and we had a sandwich at the Subway, and as we finished the sandwich, I was watching the scratchoff machine over there with the electronic line that says how much is in the Mega Millions and how much is in the Powerball,” he said.
“I think I said to Carol, ‘I think I’ll go over and buy a ticket.’ ”
He plunked down $10 for a Mega Millions ticket and $10 more for a Powerball.
But he didn’t look up the num bers the night of the drawing.
“I put the ticket in my wallet and forgot about it,” he said. “I went to play golf the next day, and the guys in the clubhouse were talking about the jackpotwinning ticket someone bought at a Valero on Route 302, and I thought, ‘Wait a minute, I bought a ticket there last night!’ ”
Harold says he’ll now take his wife to Hawaii this year to celebrate their 55th anniversary.