ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 30, 1996 TAG: 9601300105
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
A $1 MILLION Lotto prize doesn't really go all that far when you have to split it with another winner and then pay for a couple of college educations, a Roanoke County family says.
Like other lottery winners before them, Charles and Ella Bergendahl of Roanoke County couldn't help but be stunned and elated when they learned they'd won $500,000 in Virginia's Lotto jackpot drawing.
But when they sat down and looked at what they'd get over next two decades - $17,000 a year after taxes - they realized it was a wonderful windfall, but not the sort of mega-prize that would put them on Easy Street the rest of their lives.
``We've got one child at Virginia Tech and another coming up,'' Charles Bergendahl, 54, said Monday. ``The biggest part will go toward their education. It doesn't take but one year of college to eat up $17,000. ... We have sort of sat down and said: `This'll take care of the kids' education, and then after that we'll decide what we're going to do with the rest.'''
Bergendahl, a supervisor at Bell Atlantic, said he has been buying Lotto tickets since the Virginia Lottery started in 1990.
Every week since then - except perhaps a time or two when they've been out of town on vacation - he's stopped at the Fast Break Food Mart on U.S. 460 in Roanoke County and bought three tickets. He's always picked the same numbers - the first set a combination of his and his wife's birthdays, the second taken from his Social Security number and the third a combination of his son's and daughter's birthdays.
``You hope to win - but you don't expect to win,'' Charles Bergendahl said.
On his way home from work about 4:20 p.m. Wednesday, he stopped at the Fast Break and bought his usual three tickets.
He went to bed that night before the drawing. At the office about 6 a.m. the next day, a co-worker told him he'd heard one of the winning tickets had been bought in Roanoke County.
``I said: `I might have won $50 or so. Let's check what the numbers are.''' They called the lottery hot line and checked the numbers in the newspaper.
His kids' birthdays had paid off. The winning numbers were 4-6-7-8-10-15.
He called his wife at home - she hadn't left yet for work - and told her the news. ``She thought I was kidding her - as normally you would,'' he said. ``After about three hours, the reality kicked in: `Hey, we have a winner.'''
The Bergendahls will split the $1 million jackpot with someone who bought a ticket with the same numbers at a 7-Eleven in Norfolk. That person had not come forward as of Monday evening.
On Monday, the Bergendahls picked up the first of 20 checks for $17,000 - their $25,000 a year minus 28 percent in federal taxes and 4 percent in state taxes.
When they heard the news, daughter Amy, who goes to Virginia Tech, and son Allen, who attends William Byrd High School, were ``just beside themselves,'' their father said. ``They couldn't believe it actually happened.''
All the drama and money won't make Charles Bergendahl change his routine. In fact, he plans to keep playing his same numbers each week at the Fast Break.
``I still have the same odds that I always had - the odds don't change,'' he said. ``I could win it again Saturday night.''
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB