LUBEC – Larry Burns is a character, but he’s now a very rich character.
On Saturday, the Lubec man learned he had won nearly $9.8 million in the Tri-State Megabucks drawing.
Burns, 62, retired from his company in Connecticut in 2006 as a boiler operator.
“They offered a package, trying to weed out the old timers,” he said during a telephone interview Monday. He moved to Lubec two years ago to be near his twin sons, Timothy and Douglas, 18.
The two have lived with Burns’ former wife Brenda since the couple divorced in 1994. Despite the divorce, however, Larry Burns said the couple remains focused on their sons. The couple also has two grown daughters, Amanda and Kerry.
Although it’s still hard to believe that he has won, Burns said, he believes that things happen for a reason.
“I was kinda thinking to myself that final destination thing, ‘Look, look it’s me, kaplonk,'” he said referring to people who receive good news and then die.
Right now the Megabucks winner plans to invest in his sons’ education. Brenda Burns said Monday their son Timothy worked very hard to be his school’s valedictorian and that “we are so happy, they both are going to college.”
For a time, Larry Burns said it looked “iffy” that his sons would be able to attend college without a lot of debt.
“The next best thing to winning the lottery is seeing the boys graduate [from college],” he said, his voice quivering slightly. “I want both of my sons to go to college and not have to owe somebody for the rest of their lives with loans.”
Although their education is now secure, Burns said he plans to impress upon his sons that winning the lottery was not the way to make a living. “It don’t always happen. It may never happen again,” he said of the win.
The boys didn’t know as of early Monday night that their father was a big winner. He said the twins were on a class trip to Boston. He planned to give them the news when they returned later Monday night.
Burns may also go to college, he said.
“Tim, for his senior year, had to do a course at the University of Maine at Machias. We went over and I said, ‘Well, you know, maybe the old man will take a course with you to see if I have anything left for a mind,'” he said.
When he was younger, Burns took some courses one year at the University of Hawaii.
“I never finished,” he said. “I even had a letter one time from the university asking when are you going to come back and finish.”
He said he also hopes the family will be able to take a two-week trip to Florida this summer to see his father.
Burns bought the winning ticket at McFadden’s Variety Store on Route 189.
He said he selected numbers that related to his and his sons’ birthdays. “The 14th is their birthday in February. They were Valentine babies,” he said and paused. “Well, I guess it’s a little hard to call them Valentine babies now [because they’re 18].”
This is not the first big-ticket win in Washington County. In 1992, Joan and Sam Thompson of Calais bought the winning $5 million ticket from the former Clark’s Variety Store in Milltown, a village in Calais.
But this weekend’s drawing certainly produced the largest Megabucks ticket ever sold in Lubec.
Storeowner Jay McFadden said Monday that his business, which he has owned for 15 years, would receive $30,000. “That’s nothing to sneeze at,” he said of the money. When asked what he would do with the money, he said he would pay some bills and distribute some of the winnings amongst his employees.
Burns said when he first moved to Lubec he played the PowerBall and another lottery game. “It is only relatively recently that I got into the Megabucks,” he said.
The Lubec man said he almost didn’t play this weekend, but then decided to go out and get his tickets on Saturday. “I will tell you what: If I had read the next day the numbers that had come in and found out they had been mine, it would have been the same as seeing my boys’ education going down the tubes,” he said.
Burns says he plans to continue to play the lottery. “A lot of it is entertainment,” he said.
Burns has not yet collected his winnings. Asked if he planned to take a limousine to Augusta, Burns said, “I tell yah, I don’t know about hiring a limousine to get down there, but I am concerned about gas.”
Comments
comments for this post are closed