Orlando doctor claims $189 million Powerball prize
The Florida Lottery announced dermatologist William A. Steele won a $189 million Powerball jackpot
TALLAHASSEE
An Orlando physician who carried a $189 million winning Powerball ticket around in his wallet for days before having a friend check the numbers claimed the prize in Tallahassee early this afternoon.
Dr. William A. Steele elected to walk away with a lump-sum payment of just more than $101 million.
The winnings make Steele the largest-single lottery winner in Florida history.
Steele arrived at a Lottery office with his wife of three years, Frances Summers Steele, and a friend he identified only a "Maynard." He described his wife as an "inspirational writer and speaker" and said she is working on a book. "We call her Frankie," he said.
"We're still in shock," said Steele, 56.
Much of the money, he said, would go to charity. He said he plans to continue his practice "if the public will let me."
Steele said he purchased his ticket at a Chevron station at Sand Lake and Turkey Lake roads "that I go to frequently" in time for the record Oct. 3 drawing.
The Chevron store, owned by Hussein Ali, received an $80,000 bonus for selling the ticket.
The store is on the way to a gym where he goes to work out. He said he did not know immediately that he had won, although speculation in the days after the drawing was that someone in the Dr. Phillips area held a winning ticket.
Steele said he put the ticket in his wallet and "forgot about it." He also tore out a slipping from the Sunday newspaper about the drawing and put it in his wallet as well, but never checked the numbers.
Steele said he was preparing to go to a charity event at Universal Studios Saturday night when he called Maynard, whom he described as a childhood friend, and asked him to go to the Florida Lottery Website and check the numbers. He said he read the numbers to his friend, who didn't believe him at first.
Then he went to Maynard's house to see it on the computer himself.
He called the decision to call Maynard to check the numbers "an oh my gosh moment." It was about 4 a.m. Sunday when he woke his wife and asked her if she loved him. Then he told her about the ticket.
"Go back to sleep," she told him.
In the days after realizing they had won, they put the ticket in a safety deposit box as they prepared to accept the money.
Steele said he plans to set up a foundation next year and will have volunteers from his attorney's office and the community screen applications for funding.
He also said he plans to support several charities, but declined to name them. "They know who they are."
Steele's Web site described him as "a respected dermatologist and Mohs Micrographic surgeon. " It said he received his medical degree from the University of Iowa and is Board-Certified having received Dermatology and MOHS micrographic surgery training in the residency program at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.
Customers had mixed reactions at the Chevron station where Steele bought the winning ticket.
"Wow!" said Mario Dela Fuentes, a worker at Universal Studios, which is down the street from the Chevron off Sand Lake Road west of Interstate 4. "I would not be charitable. I would give some money to my family but I would not set up a charity."
Another customer wasn't impressed by Steele's announcement about setting up a charity.
"Well, I'm just a regular person without the money of a dermatologist and I would never have given any of it away," said customer Jessica Ventiglia. "I'll still keep playing at this gas station until I strike my million."
"Life is beautiful, and this person's charitable soul proves good can come from the Lottery," she said.
The Florida Lottery joined Powerball in January, and this is the first jackpot winner sold in the state.
The record Lotto jackpot in Florida is $106.5 shared by six tickets for the drawing of Sept. 16, 1990. A $104.85 million Lotto jackpot on Dec. 14, 2002, was shared by four tickets.
The previous single ticket jackpot record in Florida was a $66.99 million Lotto jackpot from the March 29, 2000, drawing, won by 26 members of the Bent Pine Golf Course in Vero Beach.
Robert G. Swofford Jr. of Altamonte Springs won a $60 million Lotto jackpot on Nov. 24, 2004, and the late Sheelah Ryan of Winter Springs won a $55.15 million jackpot on Sept. 3, 1988.
At the time Ryan won, it was the largest single-ticket jackpot winner in the nation.
The Florida Lottery sold $53,247,163 worth of Powerball tickets in the string of drawings leading up to the Oct. 3 drawing, generating more than $21 million for its education trust fund.
