Gloria C. Mackenzie - the 84 year old woman winner of $590,500,000,00
An 84-year-old Florida woman who bought her Powerball ticket after another customer let her get ahead in line came forward Wednesday to claim the biggest undivided lottery jackpot in history: $590 million.
Gloria C. MacKenzie, who lives in a modest, tin-roof house in Zephyrhills, where the sole winning ticket in the May 18 drawing was bought, took her prize in a lump sum of just over $370 million. After federal taxes, she is taking home about $270 million, lottery officials said.
She did not speak to a crowd of reporters outside lottery headquarters, leaving quickly in a silver Ford Focus with her son and family friends. She was accompanied at the lottery offices by two unidentified attorneys.
MacKenzie bought the winning ticket at a Publix supermarket in the town of about 13,300 people 30 miles northeast of Tampa. It is best known for the bottled spring water that bears its name -- and now, for one of the biggest lottery winners of all time.
The $590 million was the second-largest lottery jackpot in history, behind a $656 million Mega Millions prize in March 2012, but that sum was split, with three winning tickets.
In a statement read by lottery officials, MacKenzie said she purchased the ticket after another buyer "was kind enough to let me go ahead in line." MacKenzie let the lottery computers generate the numbers at random. She said she also bought four other tickets for the drawing.
"We are grateful with this blessing of winning the Florida Lottery Powerball jackpot," the statement said. "We hope that everyone would give us the opportunity to maintain our privacy for our family's benefit."
The winner had 60 days to claim the prize. Lottery spokesman David Bishop said MacKenzie, her lawyers and her financial adviser spent about two hours going through the necessary paperwork.
"They had clearly been preparing for this. They took all this time to get everything in order," Bishop said.
Minutes after the announcement, a dozen reporters in Zephyrhills were camped outside MacKenzie's gray duplex, which backs up to a dirt alley and is across from a cow pasture.
Neighbors were surprised by her good fortune.
Reaction to the multi-million dollar PowerBall winner has been positive all-around.
Her name is fast becoming well-known in households all over Zephyrhills, as word of her big win spreads.
A tidal wave of media has begun to descend on her neighborhood, where she lives in a modest duplex with a tin roof.
News that a millionaire is living next door was pretty shocking to most of her neighbors, but in a good way.
"I was floored. I was shaking," said a neighbor. "I had no idea, I'm still shaking, I don't believe it. It's hard to believe."
"We ain't seen her in awhile," said another neighbor Sharon Cecil. "I know she has kids I don't know where they're from or anything, but they might have come and got her!"
"I remember one time someone came and stole her alumninum off her air conditioning and somebody was replacing it and that's when I actually got to see her more," said another neighbor James Hill. "I'd say she's a very patient, lovable person, getting to know her."
Mackenzie has hired a financial firm to help her handle all that cash. And she's asking for privacy for her family, while they try to figure out what their next move is, as multi millionaires!
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