Illinois couple just ‘everyday people’
Illinois couple count the ways to spend their $110.5M Mega Millions windfall
Butlers, last of Mega Millions winners to come forward, “don’t anticipate our day-to-day lives changing,”
“We are just everyday people who have worked hard all our life, who love our family and our city, (and) pay our taxes. We just happened to hit it big in the lottery."
Merle Butler
Merle and Pat are just regular people. But they’re worth more than $110.5 million after winning their share of the biggest lottery jackpot in history.
The Red Bud, Ill., couple say they’re trying to decide what to do with the money. They’ll invest for sure — maybe even go on a vacation, said Merle Butler, 65, and his wife, Patricia, 62. Their identities were revealed Wednesday at a news conference.
“We are just everyday people who have worked hard all our life, who love our family and our city, (and) pay our taxes,” Merle Butler said. “We just happened to hit it big in the lottery. We enjoy spending time with our family and friends, and — believe it or not — don’t anticipate our day-to-day lives changing all that much because of the win.”
The couple, married 41 years, are the last of the Mega Millions winners in three states to come forward and claim the third and final portion of the $656 million jackpot. Winning tickets were also sold in Kansas and Maryland, and those ticket holders chose to remain anonymous.
The Illinois Lottery generally requires, with some exceptions for “compelling reasons,” that winners appear for a news conference and related promotions, partly to show that it pays out prizes as promised, said Mike Lang, a spokesman for the Illinois Lottery.
Merle Butler bought $3 in Quick Pick tickets March 28 at the Red Bud Motomart, part of an Illinois-based convenience store chain. He learned the couple had won the night of the drawing March 30.
After checking his ticket, Merle said he shared the news with his wife. “She kind of looked at me funny, and I said, ‘No, we won,’ and she started giggling,” he said. “She giggled for about four hours, I think. . . . We were up all night.”
Merle Butler worked for General American Life Insurance in St. Louis for 25 years and retired about eight years ago, he said. Patricia Butler worked for several companies and retired from the Edward Jones’ information technology department about five years ago.
“It really hasn’t sunk in yet,” Patricia Butler said. “Winning this amount of money is a major responsibility, one we take seriously and will figure out step-by-step as we go along. I’m sure we will be using part of the winnings to do some real good; we just don’t know yet how that might manifest itself.”
Records show the couple have lived in their home since 1977, own a home in Waterloo, Ill., and an 18foot aluminum motor boat. They have a son, a daughter and several grandchildren.
Friends and former co-workers of the Butlers say the self-described “everyday people” are exactly that.
The two are well-known in their city (population 3,700) and spend a lot of time camping and enjoying their family, said Kelly Kueker, 23, who has lived across the street from the Butlers her whole life.
“They deserve it,” she said. “They are very nice. They’ve always been very talkative.”
Kueker was shocked when she realized her longtime neighbors were millionaires. “I just talked to them a few days ago,” she said. “I would never have thought they won. They kept it pretty silent.”
News of Patricia Butler’s good fortune spread fast among her former co-workers at Edward Jones.
“Most people here knew Pat But- ler, so we were really excited,” said Gayle Gill, who works in the company’s information technology department. “She was very dedicated to just doing a good job.”
Mike Romano, who hired Patricia Butler, said she drove an hour each way to work everyday and couldn’t remember Butler ever being late or absent. “She was a very nice person to work with,” he said. “She’s very family-oriented. I always heard stories about the family and camping.”
Only about five people knew the couple won the lottery before the news conference, Merle Butler said. The Butlers put the ticket away in a safe deposit box at their bank and spent the past few weeks meeting with financial advisers and an attorney, he said.
“We’ve been thinking of ways we can invest it,” Merle Butler said. “We’re getting ready for the transfer. Over the next few months, we’re going to start setting up different things we can use it for . . . possibly a vacation.”
Soon after Wednesday’s news conference, the Butlers took off in their car minutes before media trucks, reporters and police cruisers showed up outside their home and lined their neighborhood’s streets, Kueker said.
Kueker doesn’t expect to see her neighbors for a while.
“They will probably be out of town for a little bit to try to avoid the media,” she said.