Cedar Rapids Woman Wins $300,000 With Lottery Scratch Ticket

You talk about a great way to start the week. A Cedar Rapids woman bought a scratch ticket Monday morning. By yesterday afternoon, she was $300,000 richer.

Monday morning, Michele Lutenske of Cedar Rapids stopped at the Hy-Vee gas station at 3935 Blairs Ferry Road NE in Cedar Rapids and purchased a ticket for the Colossal Crossword scratch game. She hopped back into a friend's truck and began scratching the ticket. Of course, she was more than a little astounded at what she saw.

Lutenske told the Iowa Lottery,

“I started scratching it and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is a winner. Look at all these words!’ I kept scratching and I kept looking, thinking, ‘Yeah, I have that letter.’”

After confirming that she'd won the game's top prize, Lutenske said she was completely shocked.

“It was overwhelming and it’s a moment I’ll never forget, I’ll tell you that. I’ll never forget scratching that ticket and seeing that $300,000, those numbers, all those zeroes.”

By the time she claimed the prize Monday afternoon at the Iowa Lottery headquarters in Clive, the 62-year-old Lutenske had calmed down. That's a little different than how she described the moments after realizing she'd won nearly ten times what the average Iowan makes in one year. Lutenske reflected,

"This morning when I scratched that ticket? It was craziness. Shaking. Scared. Crying. All kinds of emotions.”

Lutenske says she and her husband will pay some bills and buy a couple of vehicles. She was the 13th $300,000 winner in the “Colossal Crossword” scratch game. There are nine $300,000 tickets still remaining but before you run out to buy one, you should know that a ticket costs $30.