19-year-old hits jackpot with first lottery ticket

McClatchy Newspapers

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Nineteen-year-old Jonathan Vargas bought his first lottery ticket, along with gasoline and an iced tea, Saturday at a Cayce Raceway station.

His errand made history.

With the ticket, the Gaston construction worker became the first South Carolinian to win the S.C. Education Lottery Powerball Jackpot.

North Carolina residents bought the previous four winning tickets.

While Vargas won $35.3 million, he is choosing to take a lump sum of $17.3 million instead. The Airport High School graduate should have his money within two weeks, lottery officials said.

“I have a mixture of feelings. Scary. Exciting. Still shocking,” Vargas said. “I’m still telling my mother to pinch me.”

Vargas said he was working a construction job Saturday morning when “this weird feeling came over me.” He said he heard the lottery numbers in his head, jotted them on a napkin and called his mother to tell her to write them down so he could buy a ticket later that afternoon.