EASTERN IOWA MAN CLAIMS $500,000 IOWA LOTTERY PRIZE, MAKES PLANS TO BUY RV, TRAVEL

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Stephen Zabel Of Conesville Claims Grand Prize In Final ‘Midwest Millions’ Lottery Drawing

DES MOINES, Iowa - An eastern Iowa man is making plans with his wife to buy a new recreational vehicle and do some traveling now that he has claimed the grand prize of $500,000 in the final drawing of the “Midwest Millions” lottery game.

Stephen Zabel, 55, of Conesville, claimed his prize Friday at Iowa Lottery headquarters in Des Moines. Zabel joked that he's become a lucky charm in his town, a community of about 500 in Muscatine County.

“Everybody keeps rubbing my shoulder for luck,” he said with a laugh. “Word keeps spreading all the time and now it's been in the paper and everything. I had a lot of people if I'm outside, they drive by and honk the horn and wave.”

Zabel and his wife, Diana, both work at Tyson Fresh Meats, a pork-processing plant in Columbus Junction. Diana Zabel said that after Stephen told management at the plant about his big win, they used a ruse to get her to go to the plant's front office by telling her she needed to fill out some insurance paperwork. When she arrived, her husband was there along with plant management and they shared the good news.

“They told me and boy, it was hard to believe, really hard. I thought they were joking,” Diana Zabel said. “And then I kept looking at Steve's face because I can always tell. So I looked in his face and he was serious!”

Stephen Zabel was selected as the top-prize winner of $500,000 in the “Midwest Millions” drawing conducted April 18 by officials of the Kansas and Iowa lotteries in downtown Des Moines. Fifty winners of $1,000 prizes also were selected in the drawing.

Midwest Millions was the first instant-scratch game to be sold jointly by two U.S. lotteries. The Kansas and Iowa lotteries began selling the game in September. Players in both states bought tickets and competed for prizes as part of an effort to test the “Powerball concept” that has proven so successful in lotto games. Multiple lotteries have joined together in lotto games such as Powerball to offer bigger prizes and more chances to win than they would have been able to achieve on their own.

Players who did not win instant prizes in the game could send in their nonwinning tickets for two second-chance drawings. The first drawing was held Jan. 11 in Topeka, Kan. Ralph Kuwamoto, a railroad worker from Lincoln, Neb., who bought a Midwest Millions ticket while working in Glenwood in southwest Iowa, won the top prize in the Topeka drawing.

Zabel bought his ticket at the Riverside Travel Mart, 3070 Highway 22 East in Riverside. He has a mix of plans for his winnings, from doing some retirement planning to making some home improvements to doing some traveling.

“I'm thinking of trading my fifth-wheel (camper) off for a motorhome and then do some traveling,” Zabel said. The only complication in his plans is what kind of new car to buy for Diana.

“I was going to buy her a new Monte Carlo, but they quit making them, so we'll have to think about something else,” he said.

Although Zabel was still having a little trouble Friday believing that he had won a big prize, he said he was not done winning.

“I'm just waiting until tomorrow night because I'm going to win Powerball,” he said. “I've got the winning ticket in my pocket!”

Officials with the Kansas and Iowa lotteries are pleased with Midwest Millions' performance and are planning another joint instant-scratch game with sales in both states to start in September.

The prize winners in the April 18 Midwest Millions drawing were:

$500,000

$1,000

Iowa Winners

• Marlene Anderson, Webster City
• Micah Beeh, Strawberry Point
• Marilyn Brower, Des Moines
• Dennis Caster, Charles City
• Tami Chlupach, Iowa Falls
• Ricky Clark, Fort Dodge
• Ashley Conner, Ankeny
• Laura Devick, Albia
• Travis Feickert, Calmar
• David Frasher, Marion
• Richard Goebel, Dubuque
• Linda Hartwig, Conrad
• Tom Hebbeln, Davenport
• Dobby Hicks, Des Moines
• James Hunt Sr., Marshalltown
• Chris Hurst, Boone
• Larry Jensen, Center Junction
• David Kinkead, Marion
• Gary Kupforschmid, Mediapolis
• Vickie Lais, Deep River
• Jeff Leverington, Oelwein
• Gary McCarty, Keokuk
• Greg Meiresonne, Muscatine
• David Neel, Mason City
• L.J. Pearson, Ames
• Melissa Rankin, Batavia
• Brian Stoner, Des Moines
• Chuck Werner, Independence
• John Wieck, Spirit Lake
• Ruth Wienhold, Newell
• Ron Williams, West Des Moines

Kansas Winners

• Deborah Brock, Topeka
• Janet English, Parsons
• Robert Gerstner, Hays
• Teresa Goletto, Haysville
• Mary Gomel, Beverly
• Wickie Johnson, Buhler
• Tony Jones, Great Bend
• Tony Jones, Great Bend
• Sheree Marshall, Great Bend
• Brett Maxwell, Mission
• Sulema Roertson, Osawatomie
• Lance Sadler, Udall
• Daniel Tiemeyer, Wichita
• Tonia Webb, Reading
• Terry Wisdom, Eudora
• Henry Wolfe, Lansing
• Jackie Woods, Overland Park

Other Winners

• Lance Copeland, Omaha, Neb.
• Norma Grunwald, Owatonna, Minn.