5 people have a shot at a $1M Powerball on New Year’s Eve. Idaho woman is one of them
Update: Blaine Marston, of Maine, won the Powerball draw shortly after midnight on Jan. 1. The following story was written Dec. 30.
Cathie Ritchie won’t have any trouble staying up past midnight on New Year’s Eve. The Nampa woman hasn’t had much shut-eye anyway since she found out that she’s one of five finalists for a million-dollar lottery prize to be announced on TV in New York City.
“I’ve had no sleep since yesterday because they drew my name,” Ritchie told the Statesman on Monday in a phone interview. “I’m at a loss for words. Everything has been a whirlwind since this happened.”
On Sunday, Ritchie was named one of the finalists for the First Powerball Millionaire of the Year, a contest that will see a $1 million dollar winner unveiled on live television during the “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2020” broadcast Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
Three hundred lottery hopefuls gathered Sunday for a dinner in New York City, where the five finalists were announced: Ritchie; Kai Nichols, of New York; Rigoberto Hernandez, of Tennessee; Blaine Marston, of Maine; and Terresa Royce Rodgers, of New Mexico.
A second chance at the Powerball lottery
Each of the 300 attendees, including Ritchie, had already won a VIP trip to New York City featuring a hotel stay, holiday cruise and entertainment. They won as part of a “second chance” sweepstakes that allows Powerball players to use nonwinning tickets to enter for prizes. Idaho and 24 other states participated and sent semifinalists to New York.
“Idaho ... offered the second-chance opportunities through Powerball Arcade,” said Idaho Lottery spokesman David Workman in a phone interview. “Anybody who plays Powerball right now can play Powerball Arcade. It has weekly winners and it has monthly winners.”
Workman said players enter their nonwinning Powerball numbers (or scan their tickets onto the app), play games online and enter for specific prizes. The current grand prize is a trip to Tahiti and Bora Bora, he said.
Idaho sent Ritchie and another Powerball Arcade winner, Jackie Newman, of McCall, to New York City. The Idaho Lottery had more than 8,500 entries to win the New Year’s Eve trip, Workman said in a news release.
Ritchie said she was surprised to learn she’d won the trip earlier this fall.
“I didn’t even know I’d entered,” she said. “I was just playing the game.”
Million-dollar Powerball would be ‘life-changing,’ Idaho woman says
Ritchie was the second finalist announced on Sunday. Since then, she said, she’s been in a bit of a daze.
“They said (the finalist is) from Idaho, and then (the announcer) said my name and my mouth dropped open,” Ritchie said. “I don’t remember anything from then on.”
She said she went to New York without any expectations.
“I don’t win things,” she said.
On Tuesday, she and the other 300 VIP winners will attend a New Year’s Rockin’ Eve party in Times Square where country musician Jessie James Decker will perform. Parts of the party will be broadcast on the yearly program, which will again be hosted by Ryan Seacrest.
Decker will reveal the $1 million prize winner around 10:15 p.m. Mountain time, just after midnight in New York City. The annual New Year’s Rockin’ Eve show will broadcast on ABC starting at 7 p.m. Mountain time.
Ritchie said winning the Powerball money would obviously be “life-changing for my whole family.”
“I’ve been going through a lot,” she said. “I lost my job ... and I’m having trouble getting a new job. This just goes to show there’s always a light somewhere.”
This story was originally published December 30, 2019 at 4:25 PM.
