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Says he'll donate 10 percent to churches, may buy a new house and a helicopter

Friday, December 27, 2002

By Christopher Lee and Dan Eggen, The Washington Post

HURRICANE, West Va. -- Andrew "Jack" Whittaker Jr. walked into the C&L Super Serve yesterday morning and, as usual, paid for his gasoline and bought a couple of breakfast biscuits. And he quietly told the clerk who had sold him a Powerball lottery ticket on Monday that he had won.

	Powerball jackpot winner Andrew Jackson Whittaker Jr., center, and his wife Jewell, left, are introduced by West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise at a news conference in Charleston last night. (Bob Bird, Associated Press)

"She said, 'No you didn't. You're not excited enough to win the lottery.' And then she practically pushed me out the door," he laughed.

But he had.

Whittaker won a $314.9 million jackpot, the largest in Powerball history and, according to West Virginia lottery officials, the largest jackpot worldwide ever won by one person.

Rather than wait for annual payouts over 29 years, Whittaker opted to take a smaller lump sum of $111 million, after taxes. He received a check for $10 million yesterday and will get the rest Jan. 14, said Nancy Bulla, spokeswoman for the West Virginia lottery.

It didn't seem like a major sacrifice for the 55-year-old construction contractor.

"I've had to work for everything in my life. This is the first thing that's ever been given to me," Whittaker said at a Charleston news conference, where he jovially answered reporters' questions. "I just want to thank God for letting me pick the right numbers, or letting the machine pick the right numbers for me."

Flanked by his wife and other family members, Whittaker pledged not to let his newfound wealth change him much -- "I'm content with my life" -- though he did allow that he might buy a new house and a helicopter. He said most of the money will be shared with his family, including a daughter, Ginger, and his 15-year-old granddaughter, Brandi.

"My biggest problem is to keep my daughter and granddaughter from spending all their money in one week," he joked.

But first, Whittaker said, he plans to give 10 percent of the gross winnings, or about $17 million, to three Church of God parishes to "set up a fund to do good." He and his wife of 36 years, Jewell, also said they hope to take a long-anticipated trip to Israel.

"Just because it was where Jesus walked, I've always longed to go there," Jewell Whittaker said.

Jack Whittaker also said he will use some of the winnings to expand his three construction businesses, which take in about $17 million a year but have fallen on hard times in recent months. The companies, which specialize in water- and sewage-treatment contracts, employ 117 people, he said.

"I have 25 people laid off right now at Christmas," he said. "We want to get them back to work as soon as possible."

Whittaker's aw-shucks demeanor at such a giddy time sat well with many of his friends and neighbors in this small community in this small, impoverished state.

"West Virginia doesn't get enough good publicity like this. I think we all feared that some guy with no teeth and a poor command of English would get up there and make us look bad, but that didn't happen," said Ron Dawson, one of Whittaker's neighbors. "I was real proud of the way he presented himself" at the press conference, which was broadcast live nationwide.

The winning ticket came from the C&L Super Serve in Hurricane (pronounced herr-ah-cun), a town 25 miles west of Charleston. Whittaker, who lives nearby in this town of 5,893, said he stops in at the station nearly every morning to fill up his Lincoln Navigator and buy a biscuit or two.

Whittaker said he plays the Powerball only when the jackpot surpasses $100 million. When it does, he buys $100 worth of tickets.

At first, on Christmas night, he said he thought he had lost by one number because the winning numbers were broadcast incorrectly. Then, after getting up yesterday at his usual hour of 5 a.m., Whittaker said, he learned that the winning ticket had been bought at the C&L -- prompting him to recheck his own. After looking, his first call was to his lawyer, who notified lottery officials.

Powerball officials said an unexpected surge of Christmas Day customers helped push the jackpot from $280 million to $315 million. Powerball, the nation's biggest lottery, is played in 23 states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands.

Whittaker wasn't the only winner Wednesday. Larry Trogdon, who owns the C&L station, got $100,000 of his own for selling the winning ticket. The wins were especially welcome in West Virginia, which has the nation's second-lowest per capita income after Mississippi and which, because of its size, rarely has lottery winners.

"Santa has chosen to stay in West Virginia," said Gov. Robert E. "Bob" Wise Jr.

The latest Powerball jackpot is smaller than two others awarded in the Big Game contest since 2000, but both of those were split among two or more winners, lottery officials said.

The largest lottery in the world is Spain's annual Christmastime contest known as El Gordo, or "The Fat One," which this year totaled $1.7 billion. But El Gordo has about 10,000 winning numbers, with prizes ranging from $20 to $200,000 each.