Pilot discovers he won big NC lottery prize while at kitchen table. ‘Still in shock’

A North Carolina man checked his lottery ticket at his kitchen table — and the prize sent him yelling for his wife.

“She kept saying ‘Are you serious, are you serious,’” winner Barry Cozart said in a news release. “I finally convinced her.”

Cozart scored the $150,000 prize after he went to Quickie Mart in Hillsborough, roughly 35 miles northwest of Raleigh. While at the convenience store, he spent $3 on a Powerball ticket, according to the N.C. Education Lottery.

He bought the ticket for the Oct. 31 drawing, when the game’s top prize was $1 billion.

“Usually when it’s over $100 million I start buying tickets,” Cozart told lottery officials.

While Cozart missed out on the bigger Powerball jackpot, his ticket matched enough numbers to be worth $150,000. When he found out, he asked his wife to get off her conference call so she could get a glance for herself.

Cozart, a 59-year-old Orange County resident working as a helicopter pilot, kept $106,516 after taxes, officials said.

“I’m still in shock,” Cozart said in the news release.

After no one hit the jackpot in the Oct. 31 and Nov. 2 drawings, the top Powerball prize is now an estimated $1.5 billion — a near record amount. The next drawing is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 5.

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