Hardin County Woman Wins $300,000 Lottery Prize
Meshell Janes Claims Top Prize in 'Colossal Crossword' Scratch Game
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CLIVE, Iowa - A Hardin County woman who won a $300,000 lottery prize said word of her win spread quickly around town.
"Radcliffe is a little town," Meshell Janes told officials on Wednesday as she claimed her "Colossal Crossword" top prize at lottery headquarters in Clive. "I'd already had one text within 10 minutes, so it went pretty fast. And by this morning, everybody's texting me."
Janes, 60, won the seventh top prize in the $30 scratch game. She had purchased several tickets in the game at Comart, 101 Isabella St. in Radcliffe, the town of around 500 people where she lives.
She used winnings from the initial tickets she purchased to buy one more, which turned out to be the big winner.
"I just sat there, flabbergasted, thinking, 'Did I read the numbers right?'" she recalled.
She went home to tell her husband, Lindell, but couldn't get the words out because she was so emotional. After she finally did, he started crying, too.
Janes said she and her husband haven't yet decided what they'll do with the winnings.
"I'm going to think first, process it first and then try to figure it out," she said. "We're farmers so we have plenty of bills. But I've got to do something fun."
Colossal Crossword is a $30 scratch game that features 13 top prizes of $300,000, 38 prizes of $10,000 and overall odds of 1 in 2.29. For more information about this game, and the number of prizes still available, visit ialottery.com.
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