'We Were All Dancing Around Casey's' Solon Woman, Cornell Student, Wins $50,000 Lottery Prize (Audio)

Media Release

A Solon woman said she knew she’d won a big lottery prize with her “Super Crossword” instant-scratch ticket, but she wanted a store clerk to confirm it before she started to celebrate.

“We walk in and we just hand it to him like it’s no big deal; we didn’t want to make it a big deal in case I didn’t win,” said Leah Zehrt. “He takes it and he’s like, ‘So you think you have a winner?’ And we’re like, ‘Yeah, we think so.’ He scans it to confirm it and it prints out and he goes, ‘Oh, you won $5,000’ and then he goes, ‘Holy crap you won $50,000!’”

Zehrt, who is studying elementary education at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, claimed the 17th of 34 top prizes of $50,000 available in the Iowa Lottery’s Super Crossword scratch game. She claimed her prize Wednesday at the lottery’s regional office in Cedar Rapids.

Zehrt, 21, said she had won $5 on a previous Super Crossword ticket and used those winnings to purchase her most recent winning ticket Aug. 5 at Casey’s, 625 W. Zeller St. in North Liberty.

Zehrt, who also works for a before and after school program in Solon, said she took her ticket home to scratch it, and didn’t immediately realize she won a $50,000 top prize.

“(I) counted my words and initially thought I had nine words so I thought I won $5,000 which was pretty exciting because that’s kind of a lot of money still,” she said. “As I’m naming them off I noticed my 10th word, which was hen. So then that’s when I looked it up and saw that it was $50,000 and that I’d won.”

Zehrt said she plans to use her lottery winnings to help pay off student loans. She also said she’ll be able to focus on student teaching this fall and not have to worry about money.

“I’ve also looked at a few cars online too, of course,” she said

Super Crossword is a $5 scratch game. Players win a prize by uncovering at least three complete words in either puzzle or the complete bonus word in the play area on each ticket. The overall odds of winning a prize in the game are 1 in 3.69.

Seventeen top prizes of $50,000 are still up for grabs in Super Crossword, as well as 35 prizes of $5,000, 52 prizes of $500 and hundreds of prizes of $100.

Since the lottery’s start in 1985, its players have won more than $3.1 billion in prizes while the lottery has raised more than $1.4 billion for the state programs that benefit all Iowans.

Today, lottery proceeds in Iowa have three main purposes: They provide support for veterans, help for a variety of significant projects through the state General Fund, and backing for the Vision Iowa program, which was implemented to create tourism destinations and community attractions in the state and build and repair schools.