Huntington Beach Man Included : 10 Win a Chance at Big Lottery Prizes

With a spin of the drum and a blindfolded draw, the first 10 people with a chance to become millionaires in the California State lottery were selected Tuesday at the Pico Rivera Sports Arena.

Since a third of the proceeds will go to education, two educators--Roberta Weintraub, a member of the Los Angeles Board of Education, and Nick Floratos, superintendent of the Sacramento County Board of Education--were chosen to pluck the winning numbers from a large translucent plastic cylinder.

“Oh, gosh, this is really exciting!” Weintraub said with a giggle as the spinning drum came to a halt. A man with a shiny lawman’s badge broke the seal and she reached inside and pulled out a little green capsule about the size of a pillbox.

First in the Draw

“No. 5482,” an official intoned solemnly. The capsule was passed around, and several other officials nodded somberly in agreement.

A list was checked to see who No. 5482 was, and that was how Valerie Lunceford of Long Beach became the first person with a shot at winning $2 million.

The drum began to spin again. “It works similar to a cement mixer,” one official said. The process was repeated 10 times. The drum contained the names of the first 6,250 winners of the California Jackpot instant $100 prize.

Lunceford, along with Lillian Barlow of Littlerock, William Barlow Jr. of Huntington Beach, Ronald Chester of Merced, James Fair of Oakland, Glenda Glass of San Jose, Anthony Noonis of Carmichael, Bill Peters of Bakersfield, Randy Shaw of Salinas and Carolyn Stults of Simi Valley, will be eligible for a grand prize drawing in Hollywood on Oct. 28.

In a televised ceremony that night by ABC stations in California, all 10 will spin a wheel that guarantees each a minimum payoff of $10,000 and a potential of $2 million.

The wheel contains 100 slots--40 worth $10,000, 30 worth $50,000, 20 worth $100,000 and 10 worth $2 million. That means each contestant selected on Tuesday has a 1-in-10 chance at $2 million.

‘Great, Fantastic’

“That’s great, that’s fantastic!” Barlow of Huntington Beach said when he learned that he had won a chance.

Barlow is the manager of a solar heating company in Orange County. He said he had been away from his office all day, so lottery officials couldn’t reach him by phone. He was informed of his good fortune by workers at a construction site.

Barlow said he isn’t fond of wagering--”gambling doesn’t interest me”--but he bought $20 worth of tickets because “I do feel that the schools will benefit from the lottery.”

While he hasn’t figured out what to do with the money he will win, Barlow said he “would like to buy a house and live an easier life.” However, he said that no matter what he wins in the Oct. 28 drawing, “I’m not going to change my working life style.”

Chester, 38, a truck driver, yelled “Oh, my God!” when state lottery director Mark Michalko called with the good news.

Chester said he hadn’t even thought about what he would do if he won $2 million. “I thought my chances for even getting to spin the wheel were almost nothing,” he said, “so who knows?”

He’d Like to Travel

Noonis, 21, who’s working as an architectural draftsman in Sacramento while waiting to finish college, said: “I’d like to take a couple of friends and travel. In January, it’s back to school, concentrate on the degree. But for now, I’d like to travel.”

Valerie Lunceford, 38, a mother of two who works as a cosmetologist in Lynwood, said she, her husband--a los Angeles County deputy sheriff-- and their two daughters, 16 and 12, will probably take a trip, too.

And what will she do if she’s a $2-million winner?

“I haven’t really thought about it,” she said. “I’m still trying to get over the shock.”

For Carolyn Stults, 45, a housewife whose husband owns a gas station in Sepulveda, Tuesday was a “crazy day.” Her lottery luck lit up an afternoon dimmed by the smoke of brush fires.

On her way home from a Bible study class, she was forced off the freeway when police closed it because of flames crossing the road.

“As I walked through the door, friends were calling and telling me I won the lottery,” she said. “Right in the middle of all the excitement, I heard on the news they were evacuating Moorpark College, where my son is a student.”

Stults said she got her winning ticket free at a market, in return for buying a 12-pack of soda pop. “That’s the sweetest 7-Up I ever drank,” she said. “I sure enjoyed every can.”

For Lillian Barlow, 58, (no relation to the Huntington Beach Barlow) the luck of the draw means she’ll be heading for Chardon, Ohio, to visit her oldest son, James, whom she hasn’t seen in 13 years.

It also means “we’ll be able to live now instead of just exist.”

Barlow and her husband, Gerald, 64--a house painter now disabled with arthritis--live in a small rented house in Littlerock--a wide spot on Highway 138 in the desert near Palmdale. Their income is $599 per month.

“We count our pennies every day,” said the new winner, who bought 10 lottery tickets on opening day, Oct. 3. The $100 ticket was the sixth she scratched off inside a video store in Palmdale. She said she had never played a lottery and had “never won a thing before that amounted to anything. . . .”

She Has a Chance

“I just took a chance that maybe I’d get lucky,” she said. “I kept telling my husband, ‘I’m going to win that $2 million.’ At least I have a chance at it now.”

Fair, 71, an Oakland janitor who had also invested $10 in the lottery on opening day, said that around his house, his good fortune was seen as a mixed blessing.

“We have five kids in Chicago we’ll go see,” Fair said, “and my mother-in-law in Detroit. And maybe I’ll buy me a new suit.”

But Fair’s wife of 47 years, Otha, didn’t like the idea of her husband playing the lottery. “To me, it was gambling and I didn’t want him to get into it,” she said.

Fair, however, thinks his wife will come around, now that they’ve won at least $10,000. “I have 12 grandchildren I’d like to see go to college,” said Fair. He also invested $10 in lottery tickets on the first day of sales. The first couple of tickets were $5 winners, and the 10th brought him the $100 chance at $2 million.