Winning ways: South Dakota rubber workers to get $588,507 from Powerball ticket

Andrew Nelson

Friday, Feb. 7, 2003 | 10:12 a.m.

PIERRE, S.D. -- A member of the "Watertown 34," South Dakota's Powerball winners, said Wednesday the group is eager to return to everyday life after being in a whirlwind since Saturday's drawing.

"We're all ready to get back to somewhat of a normal life because we've been on the fast track for a number of days now," Wendell Bruns of Henry said Wednesday after the group traveled to Pierre to claim its prize. "It almost seems unreal about the amount of attention that we've gotten."

South Dakota Lottery officials validated the winning ticket Wednesday. The 33 workers at Minnesota Rubber and one of the worker's spouses became South Dakota's first jackpot winners since the state joined Powerball in 1992.

They elected to take a one-time cash payment rather than take annual payments over the next three decades. Each will get a check for $588,507 after taxes. The money will be paid after the Multi-State Lottery Association transfers the money to South Dakota on Feb. 18.

One of the 34 winners, Mary Nawroth, 67, of Watertown, said several of her co-workers plan to use the money to pay off debts or take vacations. Others have not yet decided what to do with their share, she said.

Marsha Ringler, 45, of Watertown, said she will use her winnings to help her family. She plans to pay off her children's debts and help her 80-year-old mother.

"She's going to live the rest of her life very nicely," Ringler said.

Lottery officials warned the group about the pitfalls of hitting the jackpot. Winners often get phone calls from people they have not heard from in years who ask for money, officials said.

Members of the group said no one has hit them up for money yet. But Bev Kasdorf of Estelline said she and her husband, Jack, got a call from a niece they hadn't heard from in more than a decade. The niece did not ask for money, but did inquire whether she could come and visit, Kasdorf said.

The Watertown 34 won half of the $101.8 million jackpot in Saturday's drawing. The other half was won by an Indiana man.

Their half was worth about $51 million if taken in annual payments over three decades. It was worth $27.4 million taken in a one-time cash payment.

The factory workers had played occasionally for a couple years before hitting the jackpot, Nawroth said. They had won small amounts in previous lottery drawings, but only a few bucks, she said.

"We just throw in when it gets really high," Nawroth said.

Clint Harris, executive director of the South Dakota Lottery, said it's not unusual for a group to win a Powerball drawing, particularly when the jackpot grows large.

The Watertown winners played a part in ending a streak of which Harris was not particularly proud.

"We hold the record for the longest time from when we joined Powerball to when we had a winner," he said.

The runner-up for that record was New Mexico, which had its first winner five years after joining, Harris said. It took South Dakota over twice as long.

Twenty-three states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands participate in Powerball. The odds of winning are about 120 million to one for every Powerball ticket sold, Harris said.