Galloway woman wins $19,000 from PCH
Charlie Staudt couldn’t believe his eyes.
It was late Thursday morning, and he was in the front yard of his Galloway home dumping some firewood ashes when two vehicles pulled up into the driveway.
He quickly entered his house and spoke to his wife, Sandra, who was on the computer filling out a contest entry for a Publishers Clearing House drawing, as she does every day.
“We got company! It’s PCH!” he said. “No, you’re kidding,” she responded. But it became clear it was no joke as Sandra opened her front door and saw two representatives from Publishers Clearing House (PCH), on her front lawn, carrying two large checks, a bottle of champagne and a bouquet of roses.
The Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol was there to surprise Sandra, 65, with an African safari trip. They also presented her with a check for $19,082, which is the trip’s cash value.
Offered a choice between the two, Sandra decided to take the cash.
“I’m just amazed,” she said.
Sandra said she enters the drawings on the PCH app multiple times a day. She said she started entering in sweepstakes in 2013 after getting advertisements from the company in the mail.
Howie Guja, a Prize Patrol team member, said PCH selects winners randomly and is audited by a third party and then the company’s law firm.
“It’s like a big computer, basically,” he said.
Guja said this is the third prize he has awarded this year, with the other winners living in Omaha, Nebraska, and San Francisco.
He said he comes to Ohio often to surprise winners. A couple of weeks ago, he met with a winner in Cleveland, and he awarded a winner in Columbus in August.
Sandra, a mother of three adult children who is retired, said she plans to use the cash money to remodel her kitchen, which hasn’t been updated since the house was built in 1960.
“I just didn’t have enough money before, but now I got enough money, so it will be about $20,000,” she said. “I dreamed it, but I never thought it would happen.” mwalker@dispatch.com @micah_walker701