“Have you checked your lottery tickets?” clerk Patty Kennedy asked him. Kennedy had already been alerted that a $250,000 ticket in the New Year?EUR??,,????'?????<

Ouellette, 51, said he went home, picked up his tickets, read off his numbers and nearly fell to his knees. He won with the six-digit number 108613 which the computer had picked for him.

“It?EUR??,,????'?????<

Ouellette owns a small landscaping business and said he will use part of his winnings to upgrade his equipment. The rest, he said, will be put away as a retirement fund.

“I?EUR??,,????'?????<

Several hours after learning he was the winner, Ouellette was still accepting congratulations. “I can?EUR??,,????'?????<

Ouellette admitted that gambling was one habit that was hard to break and that he went around to all the small general stores where he does business and bought a $20 ticket at each of them. "I bought about a half-dozen," he said.

“This time, I guess it really paid off,” he said.

Ouellette is the second landscape industry professional to win a lottery in recent weeks. David Lukach of Georgia won more than $434,000 in a state lottery at the end of December. That story, which appeared on landscapearchitect.com can be seen here: www.landscapearchitect.com/research/article/10169

Source: Bangor (Maine) News