They’ve shared laughs, tears – now $1 million
Published: October 4, 2005
Friends bought Powerball ticket during ‘Thelma and Louise’-style road trip.
The Tennessee Lottery gave away its sixth $1 million prize yesterday to a pair of longtime friends who described themselves as “Thelma and Louise.”
The Middle Tennessee women, who have been friends since 1982, had played the lottery together for years. But best friends Frances Davenport of Woodbury and Janis Goodwin, a Nashville native, knew this time was different.
“It felt like we were going to win,” Davenport said.
The two matched all five white ball numbers to win second prize in the Tennessee Powerball Lottery last Saturday.
Changes made to the lottery Aug. 28 doubled the face value of each Powerball ticket to $200,000. Davenport, 50, and Goodwin, 52, also purchased the Power Play option. On the night they won, that meant their prize was multiplied by five.
The win marks the second time the new prize level has been won in the 29 states that participate in the Powerball lottery. It is the first time it has been won in Tennessee.
“The excitement that you feel is unbelievable,” Davenport said, describing the wait between purchasing the tickets and discovering the results.
Even more unbelievable is the timing of the win.
The two said they had embarked on what they called a “Thelma and Louise”-style road trip after Goodwin had lost her job as a computer programmer. Just as they had many times in the past, the two decided to purchase lottery tickets together. This time, one of the 10 tickets they picked up at a store in Gatlinburg turned out to be a winner.
The odds were 3,563,609-to-1 against it, according to Tennessee Lottery CEO Rebecca Paul.
Davenport and Goodwin discovered their win at 8 a.m. Sunday. Davenport asked Goodwin to hold onto the ticket. Goodwin said having the ticket all night affected her sleep.
“I kept moving it all night long,” she said.
Davenport, who considers herself and Goodwin “more like sisters than friends,” also lost sleep over the ticket. She said she kept worrying that someone would find out about it and try to steal it.
“I kept thinking, ‘What if they hurt her?’ ” she said. After taxes, the two will have about $750,000 to split between themselves. They say they intend to use their win for practical purposes. “We’ll put it in the bank until the end of the year and do some research on what best to do with it,” Goodwin said.
“Hopefully, it will last us forever,” Davenport added.
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