Home Care In Irmo, SC

A Midlands woman who had her husband buy some lottery tickets initially thought she’d won $1,000 on one of the scratch-off games, according to South Carolina Education Lottery officials.

Upon closer inspection, the payout was much bigger and the couple actually won a $100,000 grand prize, officials said in a news release.

“I about jumped out of my skin,” she said in the release.

The couple originally hadn’t gone out to get lottery tickets, officials said. They were getting hamburgers at a Burger King in Irmo when the husband told the wife he was going to run inside the nearby Pitt Stop gas station/convenience store, according to the release.

“I asked him to get me two of the pink tickets,” the woman said. “They are my favorite.”

One of the “pink tickets,” was Lady Jumbo Bucks Crossword game that the man bought for $3 at the Broad River Road store, which is near Exit 101 on Interstate 26.

Inside their car, the woman scratched off the ticket.

“I thought I won $1,000,” she said.

On the way home, she counted the words on her ticket again and realized she had missed one and her jackpot was actually 100-times larger, officials said.

In total, she uncovered 11 words on the ticket to win the game’s top prize, according to the release.

“I was overwhelmed with joy,” she said.

The winners will be allowed to retain some privacy, as South Carolina is one of 11 states — along with Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Texas and Virginia — that allow lottery winners to remain anonymous.

The couple told officials that they plan to spend their newfound six-figure windfall on home improvements.

The couple overcame 600,000-to-1 odds to win the Lady Jumbo Bucks Crossword game’s grand prize, according to the release.

The Pitt Stop in Irmo received a commission of $1,000 for selling the claimed ticket.

Irmo’s new skate park hasn’t been open long, but it’s already getting attention.

Tucked away in the Friarsgate neighborhood inside Rawls Creek Park, it hosted the Boardr series, a national, all-ages skateboarding contest, on March 28-29. The event drew hundreds to the park to watch talented skateboarders show off their skills, said Marie Ryan, a volunteer on the committee that worked to get the skate park built.

“There were 71 contestants there from 20 states, from Texas to Maine,” Ryan said.

The activity on the 8,500-square-foot skating area is vindication for Ryan and others who organized and pushed for years to get the skating amenity added to the park.

She estimates that anywhere from 50 to 100 people use the park daily, just based on how many people she sees during her frequent visits.

On a recent Friday afternoon, a half-dozen elementary school-aged skateboarding students in matching blue helmets were riding around the park’s concrete bowl learning tricks from Joshua Robinson, who teaches skateboarding for the after-school program at Universal Outreach Church.

“For summer camp, I bring them out here every morning,” Robinson said. “This will be the first summer we can skate in this park.”

Previously, Robinson’s class had to travel around to other skating venues in the area, or just learn the basics on a ramp set up in the church’s parking lot. Having the skate park here, a 10-minute walk from the church, will make the program much more convenient for the kids.

“Way before the park was open, the town wasn’t even totally sold on it,” said Alonzo Johnson, the pastor at Universal Outreach. “We started hosting on the campus here, and the community excitement drew 150 kids out there, and that demonstrated to the town that there was an interest in this sort of thing.”

“I think it’s mentally beneficial for kids because it gives them something to do, and it’s a low barrier to entry,” Robinson said. “Kids like to do it because it’s something you can do on your own terms. There’s not a lot of rules. ... I got into it because there wasn’t anyone telling me what I had to do or how to organize my time.”

Near where Robinson’s students are learning to ollie, three men from North Carolina are performing their own tricks. They previously came to Irmo for the Boardr event, but were so impressed with the park’s layout they made the trip back to skate some more.

“It’s nice that it has trees,” said Tony Gregerson. “You’d be surprised how many skate parks don’t have trees and shade. It can get brutal in the summer.”

His friends Nathan Lemker and Brian Stephenson agreed Irmo’s was one of the top skate parks they have seen in their years riding.

“I would say it’s in the top three or four,” said Stephenson, who estimates he’s skated at a baker’s dozen of parks across the Carolinas. Because of its more even-sided obstacles, Irmo’s course is “more open to both regular and goofy (i.e., right-footed or left-footed) skating,” the North Carolinian said.

Irmo Mayor Bill Danielson said Boardr is planned to be an annual event in Irmo, with the skating competition slated to return to Rawls Creek next March. The mayor said it was one of the most successful initial events the town has done.

“The guy who runs all of it said we probably have one of the top five in the country because of the way it’s designed and how many competitors can use it,” Danielson said. “There were people there from 5 to 60 in age. Everybody came in that weekend, stayed in our hotels and ate at our restaurants. It’s an excellent facility.”

He credited Ryan with leading the push for the park. David Toole, owner of Bluetile Skateboards in Five Points, said he’d wanted a good skate park to open for years when Ryan and others spoke to him about the efforts in Irmo.

“They had a timeline of six months, and I thought, ‘y’all are crazy,’” he said. “It’ll be five to 10 years.”

But in just a couple years, Irmo was able to get the park completed by dedicated skate park designers 5th Pocket for a cost of $380,000. It had a soft open last fall, but the Boardr event was considered the park’s grand opening.

“She’s the GOAT of the whole thing,” Toole said, using the initials for “Greatest of All Time.” “She has a knack for staying on the ball.”

The Southern California-born Ryan has six children between the ages of 11 and 26 who are avid skateboarders. Thanks to them, she was part of a community push to add a skate park to the town.

“I’m a stay-at-home mom, so I was able to just kind of stay with this project,” she said. “There was a small committee involved in it since the beginning, then we really started having discussions with local business owners, and really just got everybody to be behind.”

That effort eventually won over the support of Irmo’s top decision-makers.

“Mayor Danielson really helped, [Town Administrator] Courtney Dennis, everybody came together with hospitality tax dollars,” Ryan said. “We raised the money for the design, donated skateboards. The community just saw the need for it.”

Toole donated a hundred skateboards from Bluetile to participants at the Boardr event, Danielson said, “so it was a huge event from that standpoint.”

“The people who are able to advocate for these parks tend to be older, more affluent skateboarders, and they don’t want what the kids want,” Toole said. “Irmo is very entry level. Pretty much anyone can go and have fun. Someone who is very skilled might get bored, but you can skate in it and find joy.”

”I live right next to [Owens Field Skate Park], and I’ll drive to Irmo five times over to skate there,” Toole said.

Even when the Irmo Skate Park isn’t hosting huge events, the community still gets a lot of use out of the facility.

”I never drive by there when there isn’t somebody up there riding,” the mayor said. “It’s always in use.”

“It’s a skate park everybody can use,” Ryan said. “It goes from beginner to advanced.”

During a recent shopping trip to a Columbia-area Food Lion a Midlands man bought a Powerball ticket before leaving the grocery store, according to South Carolina Education Lottery officials.

Although his ticket was one number away from winning the game’s $154 grand prize in February, the man’s decision to get a Powerball ticket paid off with a $100,000 jackpot, officials said in a news release.

He purchased the six-figure winning Powerball game at the Food Lion supermarket at 1339 Dutch Fork Road in Irmo, according to the release. That’s near Lake Murray.

The winning numbers in the Feb. 12 drawing were 21, 32, 36, 45, 49 and Powerball: 18.

Because he purchased the Power Play option for an additional dollar, his initial $50,000 prize was doubled when the Power Play number was revealed to be 2, officials said.

The odds of matching four white ball numbers and the red Powerball number were 1-in-913,129, according to the release.

“It was a welcome surprise,” the man said in the release.

While several more shopping trips could be in his future, the winner said he’s still making plans for spending his newfound windfall, according to the release. But he’s already given some to charity, officials said.

The winner is allowed to retain some privacy, as South Carolina is one of 11 states — along with Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Texas and Virginia — that allow lottery winners to remain anonymous.

For selling the claimed ticket, the Food Lion in Irmo received a commission of $1,000, according to the release.

The jackpot for Monday’s Powerball drawing is $139 million, according to the game’s website.

Anyone looking to buy a ticket must make a purchase by 9:59 p.m. Monday for the 10:59 p.m. drawing. Tickets are $2, and could cost more with additional options.

The odds of winning Powerball’s grand prize are 1-in-293 million.