Mom, 7 adult kids win $429M Powerball

Associated Press

LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J.

A woman and her seven adult children stepped forward Friday to claim a $429.6 million Powerball jackpot and said they have plans to tithe to their church, go on a family vacation and help their community.

But mostly they’re just still letting it sink in.

“Wow. That’s what it’s like,” Pearlie Mae Smith, 70, said at a news conference at state lottery headquarters with her children. “I’m still trying to figure out what it’s like.”

Smith’s daughter Valerie Arthur, who retired after 27 years as a state corrections administrator last August, said she expected “in about an hour from now everyone we know will come out of the woodwork.”

“We each have dreams that we want to fulfill in this life and do for our community and do for each other and our families, and it was like, well, we have been funded to do that,” Arthur said.

Smith, of Trenton, opted for the lump-sum payout of $284 million when she purchased separate $3 tickets last week at a 7-Eleven in Trenton for drawings Wednesday and Saturday. Arthur said the family hired lawyers and took time before coming forward to get educated on how best to handle the windfall.