Mt. Pleasant woman wins $25,000 a year for life

A Mt. Pleasant woman said that she had the longest day of work ever after realizing she’d won a lottery prize of $25,000 a year for life.

“It was a very, very long day,” Deb Perrott recalled with a laugh as she claimed her prize Wednesday at Iowa Lottery headquarters in Clive. “I don’t think I fully believed it yet. It just hadn’t really sunk in that this is really happening. I wanted somebody to pinch me to see if I was dreaming.”

Perrott, 58, said she told her boss that she won big in the Lucky for Life game but wanted to keep it quiet otherwise until she could claim the prize. And that’s why work just dragged along for her on Tuesday.

Perrott won her prize in Monday night’s Lucky for Life drawing. She said she learned the news just a few hours later when she popped awake about 1:30 a.m. and decided to check her lottery tickets.

She used her phone to check her numbers on the Iowa Lottery website but was still a bit in doubt. After waking up her husband, Greg, they both were in disbelief about what they were seeing, so she went to a local convenience store to have a clerk there check the ticket on a lottery terminal.

Everything verified that she was indeed Iowa’s 11th big winner in Lucky for Life since the game’s debut in the state in January 2016.

Perrott said she called her adult children to share the news, but they also didn’t believe her at first. She insists she is not known as a practical joker.

“I’m usually straight forward,” she said. “I think everybody just thought I was pulling their chains, you know?”

Lucky for Life is a $2 game with drawings twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. The game’s top two prize levels are described as “lasting as long as you do,” meaning that they are for life.

The minimum guaranteed payout for those two prize levels is 20 years, and there is a lump-sum option for players who prefer that rather than lifetime annuity payments.

Perrott, who works at a mail-management company, chose to receive her winnings in annual payments of $25,000. She said her immediate plans were to take her husband to lunch, and she also might do a little traveling, but the bulk of her winnings will make a difference long term.

“This will definitely help with retirement,” she said.

The winning numbers in Monday’s Lucky for Life drawing were: 5-7-23-25-48 and Lucky Ball 8. Perrott’s ticket matched the first five numbers but missed the Lucky Ball to win the game’s second prize of $25,000 a year for life.

Her winning ticket was purchased at Gas Land Express, 309 W. Washington St. in Mt. Pleasant. Gas Land Express will receive a $500 bonus from the Iowa Lottery for selling the winning ticket.

Perrott plays the same set of numbers for each Lucky for Life drawing but admits she never truly expected to win big.

“You play it for fun,” she said. “There’s a lot worse ways I could spend a few dollars here and there.”