CLIVE, Iowa – A northern Iowa woman’s winning scratch ticket ended up being worth more than she thought.
Susan Schwab of Osage claimed the 18th of 43 top prizes of $50,000 available in the Iowa Lottery’s “Super Crossword” scratch game.
Schwab said she bought her winning ticket Monday at Kwik Star, 809 Main St. in Osage and scratched it off the same day. She said she didn’t see that she won a big prize right away.
“It was very gradual. I think on the last letter I got one more word and then I finally thought, ‘That’s a lot of words, I better check this out,'” Schwab told lottery employees Tuesday as she claimed her prize at the lottery’s regional office in Mason City.
The 72-year-old said she initially thought her ticket had won $5,000, not the game’s $50,000 top prize.
“When I first counted them I only had nine (words), so when I went up to the self-checker and it came up $50,000, I looked and I found the word I’d missed,” she said.
Schwab said she called her children right away to tell them she’d won the lottery, and she even returned to Kwik Star to share her good news there as well.
“The lady that sold it to me is a friend of mine so I had to share it with her,” Schwab said. “She was probably as excited as I was.”
Schwab said she plans to use her lottery winnings to pay off her mortgage and make some repairs to her home.