American Airlines employees from Tulsa claim Powerball prize

Wednesday, March 8th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- A once-a-month ritual resulted in a once-in-a-lifetime payoff for 26 maintenance workers at American Airlines in Tulsa, Okla. For two years, the workers have pooled their money to buy lottery tickets. Since Oklahoma doesn't have a lottery, Marco Enriquez drove an hour north each month to the Gunny Sack convenience store, just across the border in Caney, Kan.

On Saturday, one of the tickets Enriquez bought for the group was a winning Powerball ticket worth $50 million. "It's overwhelming," Enriquez, 38, said Tuesday during a news conference at the Kansas Lottery's headquarters. "I think I speak for everybody when I say it quite hasn't hit us yet."

The Gunny Sack is a popular location for Oklahoma residents to buy Powerball tickets because it is just across the state line in Kansas. Powerball rules give jackpot winners the option of taking the entire prize over 25 years, or getting about half in a lump sum. The winners chose the lump sum of $25.9 million.

After taxes, each member of the group will receive $668,458, for a total after-tax prize of about $17.4 million.

Don Ferry was eating a sandwich at lunch Sunday and checking photocopies of the group's lottery tickets when another worker discovered the group had won. Ferry couldn't believe it until Monday morning.

"We got one number, then we got the second number," he said. "Then I got to the fifth number and I was almost scared to get to the Powerball."

The Powerball jackpot from Saturday's drawing was $150 million, but winning tickets also were bought in Minnesota and Missouri.

The largest jackpot for the Powerball game was $295.7 million, drawn in 1998. The Powerball game is offered in 20 states and the District of Columbia. The winning numbers were 3-6-8-43-48, with 1 as the Powerball.

The $50 million winning Kansas ticket is the largest jackpot in Kansas since the state started selling lottery tickets in November 1987. The previous record Kansas jackpot was in 1990, when Dodge City resident Doug Wagner won a $35 million Lotto America prize. LottoAmerica was the predecessor to the Powerball game.

The largest previous Powerball jackpot from Kansas was a $31.2million prize won in 1995 by a Manhattan resident, Pat Dreiling. "We were overdue for another winner in Kansas," said Lottery Director Greg Ziemak.

Each member of the American Airlines group put in $10 for the tickets. Members wanted a single cash payment because some of them are nearing retirement.

All 26 maintenance workers plan to keep their jobs, Enriquez said, because they are not ready to quit work. "We are all young," he said. "If we retire now, what are we going to do? Most of us are in our thirties, and I can't sit around for the next 40 or 50 years."

The 26 winners met in a Tulsa hotel conference room Monday morning to discuss the winnings. Enriquez also called the KansasLottery headquarters in Topeka to make arrangements to claim the prize.

Jim Lalama, who has worked at American Airlines for 13 years, was fishing Sunday when his wife received a phone call about the winning ticket. "As the day went on, it started to become a reality," Jeanie Lalama said, with her hand resting on her husband's left shoulder. "I wouldn't tell anyone until I told him. I was pretty excited."

Tom Stack, 37, said he sometimes had believed he was throwing away $10 a month by purchasing the tickets, though he never missed a month. He said, although he has no large purchases planned, he now is able to send his kids to college and pay off bills. "I guess I just thought this is going to be our time," he said.

Ferry said: "I have the numbers memorized. They will be my favorite numbers forever."