Va. woman takes a chance and wins $1M

WASHINGTON – A Virginia woman thinks she might take a long weekend vacation after becoming one million dollars richer.

Barbara Yancey, a single woman from Annandale, says she only really plays the lottery with groups at work. But on Thursday, when the legal secretary heard that the winner was from Annandale, she says something clicked.

“I just knew it was me. So I got my ticket, put on my lipstick and came back up here,” Yancey says.

“Here” is the Giant Food on Columbia Pike, where Yancey has been shopping since she was a teenager at Thomas Jefferson High School.

On a whim last week, simply because she had $10 in hand she says, Yancey had the machine randomly select her lottery numbers. When she returned with her ticket Thursday, she asked the teller to run the numbers.

“She got really quiet and said, ‘Sweetie, you’re our million dollar winner.’ And I said, ‘Quit messing with me,'” Yancey says.

Unsure of what she’ll do with the money, Yancey says she hopes to work a little less and maybe take a vacation to Virginia Beach.

Yancey is the 10th person from Virginia to win more than $1 million through the Powerball lottery this year, according to the Virginia Lottery.

Yancey was one of two $1 million winners from the D.C. area last week. A million dollar ticket was also sold in Dunkirk, Md. (Calvert County), but that winner has not come forward.

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