31 Newfoundlanders Split $60M Jackpot; Most Plan to Keep Working

31 Newfoundlanders Split $60M Jackpot; Most Plan to Keep Working
Joan Delaney
3/1/2018
Updated:
3/1/2018

Even though they’re millionaires now, most of the 31 winners of last week’s $60 million lotto jackpot are not going to quit their jobs.

The winners of the history-making jackpot are boilermakers who work in construction at the Come By Chance Refinery in Come By Chance, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Of the jackpot—the largest in the province and one of the top five largest in Canada—each winner will get $1.9 million.

At a cheque presentation ceremony in St. John’s on Feb. 28, Sherry Moore Hickey—the only woman in the group and the one who had purchased the winning ticket—told those in attendance she had trouble convincing some of the others that they had won.

“I had to call 29 people and be told silly things like, ‘Are you drinking?’ ‘Is there something wrong with you?’” she said, according to CTV News. “I told them all the same story, ‘We’re millionaires.’ I sent out a text: ‘This is not a joke. We are millionaires. Check the tickets.’”

After the good news sank in she got another bonus.

“I was told by 30 men [including her husband] in one day that they all love me, so how many women have that happen to them?” she said.

Hickey and her husband have already dipped into their winnings, having bought a new car and truck respectively.

‘We’re diehard boilermakers’

Of the winners—which include a husband and wife, father and son, and identical twin brothers—26 say they are going to continue working at the refinery.

“We’re union people,” Hickey said at the ceremony. “We do what we’re meant to do. This is our lives. … We’re going to get up and we’re going to go back to work.”

The other five retired immediately, reports CBC News, including Eugene Lewis, 63, who is happy to be able to retire.

“It means a happy ending to my life, and then my kids will be looked after, and have a little few things that I could never afford to have,” he said.

William Cantwell, 41, is among those planning to continue working.

“We’re diehard boilermakers and when boilermakers give their word ... we finish our job,” he said, according to CTV.

“We started a job and we’re going to finish. Some of my co-workers, after that are going to move on,” he said. “I’m only a young 41-year-old yet so I’m still going to continue on and work for another few years.”

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Joan Delaney is Senior Editor of the Canadian edition of The Epoch Times based in Toronto. She has been with The Epoch Times in various roles since 2004.
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