Iowa Lottery

Woodbury County Woman Has Unforgettable Mother's Day

Patty Schultzen Claims Top Prize of $30,000 Playing "$30,000 Club" Scratch Game

  Hear Patty tell her story.

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DES MOINES, Iowa - A Woodbury County woman received a few scratch tickets for Mother's Day and ended up winning a top prize of $30,000 playing the lottery's "$30,000 Club" instant-scratch game.

Patty Schultzen, 56, said she and her husband, Terry, have a tradition of giving each other some scratch tickets as gifts, so she wasn't surprised when her Mother's Day card contained a few tickets.

"The third ticket I got the thirty thousand," Schultzen said. "I had looked at it and looked at it and I'm thinking, 'No way.'"

Schultzen said she had some difficulty telling Terry about the win.

"My heart started beating really fast and I got this lump in my throat and I tried telling him, but I couldn't," Schultzen said. "And it finally squeaked out and he goes, 'Oh, no way. Let me look at it!'"

Schultzen and Terry, who are from Bronson, took the ticket back to Hy-Vee, 3401 Gordon Drive in Sioux City where Terry had purchased the ticket to have it validated.

"We went out and we verified it and then we called all our relatives," she said. "It was the best card he's ever gotten me in the almost 40 years we've been married."

Schultzen said she and Terry plan to invest the money in their retirement plan, as well as celebrate their wedding anniversary by taking a vacation.

Schultzen claimed her prize Monday at the Iowa Lottery's regional office in Storm Lake.

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