Rhea County Man Wins $282,219 in Ga. Lottery

A retired welder from Rhea County, Tenn. wins $282,219 after matching all five winning numbers from the Oct. 17 Fantasy 5 drawing.

James Harwood, 67, bought his ticket at Plaza Video & Lottery, 115 Chickamauga Ave. in Rossville. A resident of Evensville in Rhea County, Tenn., Harwood said he was visiting his son, who lives in Georgia, when he purchased the ticket.

Winning numbers from the Oct. 17 Fantasy 5 drawing were: 4-13-20-22-36.

He discovered his win after checking the results on the Georgia Lottery’s Web site.

“It was a big surprise,” Harwood said. “It still feels like a dream.”

A father of two adult children with his wife, Delores, Harwood intends to pay off bills and share a portion of the prize with his one grandchild and one great-child.

Georgia Lottery retailers selling winning jackpot Fantasy 5 tickets receive a retailer incentive bonus of $2,000. The retailer incentive bonus increases by $2,000 each time Fantasy 5 rolls. If more than one winning jackpot ticket is sold, the retailers selling the jackpot winning tickets will share the bonus. Plaza Video & Lottery will receive a $4,000 retailer incentive bonus.

Since its first year, the Georgia Lottery Corporation has returned more than $11.2 billion to the state of Georgia for education. All Georgia Lottery profits go to pay for specific educational programs including Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship Program and Georgia’s Pre-K Program. More than 1.2 million students have received HOPE, and more than 940,000 4-year-olds have attended the statewide, voluntary prekindergarten program.