CAN LIGHTNING REALLY STRIKE THE SAME PLACE 18 TIMES?
They say lightning never strikes the same place twice. Robert Bevan would like a word.
Recently, Robert walked into our lobby to claim a $50,000 prize on the Scratch game $1,000,000 King. For most, that is a once-in-a-lifetime moment. For Robert, it was a reunion. As our team looked through the records, we realized something incredible. Robert has been a part of our history for nearly 30 years. It started back in 1997. That was an era of mail-in entries and paper tickets. No social media. No smartphones. Pre-Y2K. That year, Robert won a brand-new Chevy Blazer and drove away into the sunset...or did he? Robert NEVER QUIT!
He came back in 2014 for a $200,000 jackpot. He came back for a $20,000 check. He came back for a handful of $5,000 and $1,000 prizes. Last week, three decades after the Blazer, he walked back through our doors with a $50,000 ticket in hand.
Looking at the archive photos from 1997 felt like opening a time capsule. People look at the numbers and see "luck." But standing in the lobby with him, it felt like a testament to a lifelong journey.
Robert used to travel around the state for work and when he visited a town, he
would always pick up a couple of tickets.
“Luck can happen anywhere, at any time. It’s random, so every place I visited was as good as any other place I might play,” he said. “Because winning is random, being in the right place at the right time is kind of what Scratch tickets are, so when you’re someplace random, you should play, that’s the way I like to look at it.”
Some stories are too unlikely to be made up. They say lightning never strikes the same place twice. That may be true. For Robert, winning just struck for the 18th time, even though those wins came from ten different stores.
But according to Robert, none of this is really “luck.” He says playing Lottery is simply something he and his wife have always done for fun together. Stopping for gas. Picking up groceries. Grabbing a ticket along the way. It’s become part of life.
This year, the couple is celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary.
When asked about all the winning over the years, Robert smiled and said, “My real luck is 40 years with the same amazing woman.”
And for the record, Robert still owns the 1997 Chevy Blazer he won.
Robert’s winning ticket was sold at the Winco in Eagle.
Michelle and Robert Walker from Mead, Washington, self-confessed they are competitive Yahtzee players against one another. The winner of each game gets to scratch the Lottery ticket of their choice.
Robert, who works in Idaho, picked several 20X Scratch tickets from the Super Store in Post Falls. The couple were playing Yahtzee and Michelle won. She selected her scratch ticket and played.
“We had been in a good run on those tickets. We had ten of them, won $180, so, Robert picked up another 18 tickets,” explained Michelle. “Well, when I scratched the ticket, I saw it but couldn’t believe it. I stared at it. Robert stared at it; we both stared at it for probably about ten minutes.”
The couple had won the first big prize of $100,000 on the Scratch Game 20X.
The Walker’s made a day of it, flying in from Spokane to Boise to claim their winnings.
“We plan to be back here,” said Michelle confidently. “We will win big again!”
The Walker’s winning ticket was sold at the SuperStore on Riverbend Ave in Post Falls. This was the same store which sold the final Bucks N’ Trucks winner earlier this
On a warm spring afternoon, where the prairie meets the pine tucked away in the northeast corner of Idaho is Timberline Schools. Off the beaten path in Weippe, there are no traffic lights and the only gas station in town still has old-fashioned dials on their pumps to measure gallons and price. It’s a tightknit community where logging and ranching are generational.
The school sits on a slope halfway between Weippe and Pierce, with a total of 200 students from K-12, and a dozen graduating in early June. On this warm spring afternoon, the Idaho Lottery made the long trek to deliver books for Katie Bird’s English/History class for Juniors and Seniors, and Tyler Barron’s Natural Resources class for upperclassmen.
Combining history and literature is the perfect way to help students learn. The books delivered featured modern translations of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and, the Scottish Tragedy, Macbeth. In addition, they also delivered enough classroom copies of Laura Hildebrand’s Unbroken, a true World War II tale of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini, and Daniel James Brown’s classic book about the 1936 men’s rowing team at the University of Washington, The Boys in the Boat.
“Putting a real book into the hands of teenagers is meaningful in today’s digital age, especially when I can tie together history with real life stories,” said Katie, English and History teacher at Timberline Schools. “The books I chose, I hope, will appeal to the young men I have in my class in the next couple of years. They tell stories about resilience, that blend literature with history.”
In Tyler Barron’s Natural Resources class, the Lottery joined the students on a field trip to take tree core readings to understand better forest management practices that will help raise a healthy forest for economic benefit, and lead to the prevention of severe wild forest fires.
“The tools we received from Classroom Wishlist are going to teach them useful, real-life skills for the workforce and could be useful in real world applications managing our forests,” said Tyler.
Katie believes there is always a place for Shakespeare in the classroom, and perhaps fittingly the woods and forests surrounding Weippe play as an important part of daily life as they did in Shakespeare’s time. And who’s to say, that in the modern era, Shakespeare could have placed one of his stories where the golden grass of the prairie meets the greenery of forest in northeast Idaho.
to David Dunn of Albion. He was last month’s winner for reading the Wooh News and entering to win $50 in Scratch tickets.
MAVERIK #410, 1630 E MCMILLAN RD, MERIDIAN MAVERIK #430, 4923 CLEVELAND BLVD, CALDWELL MAVERIK #470, 12127 W FRANKLIN RD, BOISE MAVERIK #563, 57 E FRANKLIN RD, MERIDIAN MAVERIK #572, 10577 W FAIRVIEW AVE, BOISE MAVERIK #661, 410 N 21ST AVE, CALDWELL MAVERIK #797, 15280 GREEN RD, CALDWELL OWYHEE MOTOR SALES, 3 S MAIN ST, HOMEDALE STINKER STORES #030, 1607 S BROADWAY AVE, BOISE STINKER STORES #032, 1620 N 13TH ST, BOISE STINKER STORES #058, 2550 S APPLE ST, BOISE STINKER STORES #107, 1601 S VISTA AVE, BOISE STUBS, 3662 S FINDLEY AVE, BOISE SUNNYSLOPE MARKET, 14987 SUNNYSLOPE RD, CALDWELL SUPER C, 331 N AVE D, KUNA TOBACCO CONNECTION #016, 1107 12TH AVE S, NAMPA WALMART STORE #2508, 8300 W OVERLAND RD, BOISE WALMART STORE #2781, 2100 12TH AVE RD, NAMPA WAYPOINT CHEVRON #1443, 300 E LAKE ST, MCCALL WINCO FOODS #001, 110 E MYRTLE ST, BOISE WINCO FOODS #027, 3032 E STATE ST, EAGLE WINNERS CORNER, 7447 W EMERALD STE 130, BOISE
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JACKSONS (EM) #095, 9545 W CHINDEN BLVD, GARDEN CITY
BUD'S, 16345 N MERCHANT WAY, NAMPA BUD'S, 8301 W BEACON LIGHT RD, EAGLE FRED MEYER #439, 10751 W OVERLAND RD, BOISE FRED MEYER #685, 1400 W CHINDEN BLVD, MERIDIAN
BUD'S MARKETPLACE, 15918 KARCHER RD, CALDWELL
BIG SMOKE #122, 6898 W FAIRVIEW AVE, BOISE
AIRPORT CHEVRON, 2828 AIRPORT WAY, BOISE ALBERTSONS #0103, 415 CLEVELAND BLVD, CALDWELL ALBERTSONS #0161, 10700 USTICK RD, BOISE ALBERTSONS #0162, 5100 OVERLAND RD, BOISE ALBERTSONS #0169, 909 E PARKCENTER BLVD, BOISE ALBERTSONS #0193, 1653 S VISTA AVE, BOISE BIG SMOKE #122, 6898 W FAIRVIEW AVE, BOISE
$1,000 $2,000 50X BANK BUSTER CIRCLE K #2746511, 504 BRYDEN AVE, LEWISTON WINCO FOODS #128, 2001 17TH ST, LEWISTON
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SPRINGS, 980 WARM
