Ohio Teachers Win $1M in Lottery Pool and Honor Late Colleague
NEED TO KNOW
- A group of Ohio teachers are $1 million richer after they won a lottery pool
- They’ve decided to share a portion of their earnings with their late colleague’s children
- The woman’s four adult kids plan on taking a family trip with the winnings
A group of teachers in Ohio won $1 million through a lottery pool. Now, they’re honoring a late member by sharing her winnings with her children.
“She was a good friend,” said Karen Rader, a retired art teacher from Crestview Elementary School in Ashland, of her late colleague, Mary Jo Manocchio, in an interview with FOX affiliate WJW.
“Makes me get a little weepy,” said Rader, who has coordinated the 10-member pool for the past six years. “She loved her kids, her own children and she loved the children that she taught.”
In March of 2021, Manocchio died of cancer, but her fellow teachers continued to play and contributed to her share in the teacher’s honor, according to the Ohio Lottery and WJW. She had worked at the school for more than two decades, according to her obituary.
“Mary Jo loved children and immensely enjoyed teaching her students,” her loved ones wrote. “She was an active member within the Crestview community.”
Manocchio was their “guardian angel,” Rader told the lottery.
A collective blessing came on Wednesday, Aug. 6, when the group won $1,000,004 in a Powerball drawing, according to the Ohio Lottery.
Rader had purchased the winning ticket at a gas station. She was drinking a coffee when she realized they’d won big.
“I was talking to my daughter on the phone, and I was like, I think we won a million dollars!” Rader told the organization. “I started texting everyone and they were like no way, no way, and so they checked the numbers themselves, and they were like, we did win!”
After taxes, each winner will receive $72,000, the lottery said. Their plans for the money range from paying off mortgages to purchasing new cars.
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Manocchio’s portion will go to her four adult kids, WJW reported.
“They are thinking about doing something as a family, maybe some type of a memorial in their mom’s memory, or take a family trip,” Rader told the outlet, “because that is what Mary Jo would have loved, to have her family together.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with a gambling problem, please contact the National Problem Gambling Helpline Network at 1-800-522-4700 or go to gamtalk.org.
Credit to Nypost AND Peoples
