
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 18, 1990                   TAG: 9006180145
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SPEEDWELL                                LENGTH: Medium

WOMAN HITS $3 MILLION JACKPOT

Peggy Linkous, 24, said she "about fell over" Sunday morning when she learned she had won the $3 million jackpot in the weekend's Lotto drawing.

Linkous, a Wythe County housewife and mother of two, won a grand total of $3,327,593 by picking six numbers in exact order.

"I just picked them right out of my head," she said of the winning numbers - 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 34.

The jackpot adds up to an after-tax windfall of $126,446 each year for the next 20 years.

Linkous figured her winnings would bring in a month about the same amount of money her husband, Larry Jr., brings home in a year from his job at the Wythe County landfill.

Larry Linkous said they would pay some bills with the money and possibly buy the farm they had dreamed about. "That's all I ever wanted to do, farming," he said.

Peggy Linkous is a regular player of the Virginia Lottery's instant scratch-off games. Her biggest winning had been $50.

Friday, Linkous decided to try her hand at Lotto with the computerized machine recently installed at Wohlford's Superette in Speedwell.

She paid $1 and picked six numbers. She bought a second chance on Saturday, the day of the weekly Lotto drawing.

Peggy and Larry Linkous awoke Sunday oblivious to the fact that they had become millionaires.

"A friend of mine was sitting there in Speedwell and told me the winning numbers," Larry Linkous said. "It dawned on me that it was my wife's number."

The Linkouses hurried over to Wohlford's Superette, where the winning numbers were posted on a bulletin board.

"The town is just buzzing," said Peggy Wohlford, who runs the grocery store. "Everybody's just happy for these kids."

The couple will go to Richmond today to claim the first installment on their prize. His father, the Rev. Larry Linkous Sr., will drive them.

"I prayed for the Lord's guidance to let them use it wisely so it will be a blessing to them instead of a cursing," said the elder Linkous, a Methodist minister.

Wohlford's Superette, meanwhile, was doing a brisk trade in Lotto tickets on Sunday. "We've been running all day," Wohlford said.

by CNB