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Two Hiawatha, Iowa Powerball Office Pools Win $50K

Photo: Iowa Lottery

(Clive, IA) -- A group of co-workers from a Hiawatha company has claimed a 50-thousand dollar Powerball prize. The ticket from the office pool just missed winning the billion dollar-plus jackpot from Wednesday's drawing. Members of the group claimed their prize at lottery headquarters today (Friday). A second 50-thousand dollar prize won by 21-co-workers of a Hiawatha engineering firm was claimed yesterday (Thursday).

“It’s kind of surreal,” said Tim Merges, a member of the group who call themselves One Link Short. “You hear stories of people winning it, but it’s never really somebody you know. But a group of us at work, we put in and it paid off because we won $50,000.”

Merges works at RUD Chain in Hiawatha. He says a member of the group bought Powerball tickets at multiple stores in Hiawatha, then sent copies to each member before Wednesday’s drawing. The winning ticket was purchased at Kwik Star, 1800 Blairs Ferry Road NE in Hiawatha.

Merges says the last ticket he checked was the big winner.

“You get used to seeing, $4, $5, whatever, just little amounts, and then you see all those zeros and it’s like, ‘Wow!’” he said. “You kind of get excited and nervous, and you want to tell everyone.”

Merges texted a few members of the group, but they refused to believe him until he sent a screenshot showing the prize amount.

“It was kind of fun. As everyone kind of funneled in, we called people that were out and about and let them know that we won,” Merges said. “We put them on speaker phone and no one believed us.”

Merges says he hasn’t given much thought to what he’ll do with his portion of the winnings. But the group is eying Saturday’s record Powerball drawing.

“We already got everyone to put in another $10,” he said. “We’re excited to see if we can win it big.”

The Powerball jackpot has risen to a record estimate of $1.6 billion annuity, $782.4 million cash option for Saturday's drawing.


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