The Spragues--a retired couple in Pueblo, Colo.--have better reason than most of us to ponder the old saw, "easy come, easy go." For an exhilarating hour or so last weekend, the Spragues opened up the Sunday paper to discover that they had won more than $4 million in the Colorado Lotto. There was just one problem, however: The newspaper had printed the wrong numbers.
Dorothy Sprague told The Lookout she was in the kitchen when her husband, a retired teacher and plumbing shop owner, checked the numbers in the Sunday edition of the Pueblo Chieftain.
"He was checking them off and he says, 'Oh at least I got three--we got a winner this time! Oh wow, there's four, five, six.' And I said no, that can't be right. He said 'Come look,' because I was still doing things in the kitchen and then sure enough it was all six numbers.
I couldn't wrap my mind around 4 million. I just said, 'No that's unreal.' "
Sprague and her husband Jim decided they wouldn't tell anybody until they were sure, except for their daughter, who was home visiting.
"We don't do the Internet or the computer or anything and my husband says, 'I got to tell somebody,' so we told her. We were discussing it and talking and then one of us said, maybe there's more than one winner. And she said, 'Why don't I check on the Internet?' So she went on her laptop and she checked the numbers and they were wrong."
Sprague says she felt crushing disappointment, even though the high of contemplating their seven-figure payday was short-lived. "It was only for about an hour that we were millionaires," she says.
She wanted to use the money to help her four children and eight grandchildren. "We were going to help our kids out with a couple of things and then we thought we'd do a little traveling because we haven't done that in a long time. We've got family in Oklahoma and some real good friends in Iowa. We hadn't got much farther than that."
Another round of disappointment hit the couple when NBC's "The Today Show" called and said they would fly her and her husband to New York City on Friday for an interview and put them up in a hotel. They called back yesterday and cancelled the plan, saying they needed to cover the royal wedding instead, and made no plans to reschedule. "So we got disappointed again," she says.
All told, Sprague and her husband have been remarkably classy and understanding about the local newspaper's mistake.
"Everybody makes mistakes--it's just human error," she says. "I don't blame the paper. I've enjoyed the Chieftain for a number of years," her husband
told a Chieftan reporter. For his part, the paper's managing editor said, "We all feel terrible about the mistake," adding that he regrets having inadvertently put the Spragues through an "emotional rollercoaster."
Jim Sprague
told News5First he doesn't plan on giving up his lottery habit: "I'll find the right numbers one of these days," he said, laughing.
Just be honest and say since you didn't actually win we don't want to talk to you.
