Lottery Winner’s Number Is Up

--A Pennsylvania Lotto ticket for nearly $5.6 million is now just a worthless piece of paper because a year passed without the winner cashing in, making it the largest uncollected lottery jackpot in the country. “It’s a shame,” said Lynn R. Nelson, executive director of the lottery. “I hope that every winning ticket would be presented to us.” The ticket, worth $5,577,780, was sold for the April 6, 1984, Lotto drawing. The game requires players to pick six numbers out of 40 and the winner to claim the prize within a year. Because the date fell on a Saturday, lottery officials extended the deadline to Monday. Six persons wrote or called in recent weeks, saying they picked the winning numbers but had lost the stub, Nelson said. The claims were rejected because the ticket must be presented to win the prize, he said. Nelson said the winner probably doesn’t have the ticket and never knew its value. “I know that if I had a ticket that was worth that kind of money I’d . . . be producing it,” he said. The $1.9 million set aside to purchase an annuity for the prize reverted to the lottery fund, which finances programs for Pennsylvania’s elderly, Nelson said.

--More than 30,000 Washington-area children hopped over to the White House lawn for the traditional Easter egg roll. Some rolled hard-boiled eggs while others hunted for wooden ones signed by celebrities such as Jane Fonda, Alan Alda, Pat Boone and Jimmy Stewart. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus clowns, Daddy Warbucks from the musical “Annie,” actress Sandy Duncan and cartoon characters such as the Smurfs, Mickey Mouse and Yogi Bear helped entertain the youngsters. Vice President and Mrs. George Bush stood in for President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, who are vacationing at their California ranch. The Easter egg roll dates back to the early 1800s when President James Madison, at the request of his wife, Dolley, sponsored the event on the Capitol grounds.

--Opera star Luciano Pavarotti was forced to bow out before the curtain rose on appearances marking the 20th anniversary of his American debut. Pavarotti cabled Robert Herman, general manager of the Greater Miami Opera, saying he was ordered by his doctor to rest for two or three weeks. The famed tenor had been scheduled to appear in four performances next week of Verdi’s “Ernani.” Herman said Pavarotti’s place would be taken by Neapolitan tenor Nunzio Todisco. Pavarotti has returned home to Modena, Italy, after being examined by a doctor in New York. He first appeared in the United States with the Greater Miami Opera in 1965, singing opposite Joan Sutherland in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor.”