Truck Driver, Student Split Big Lotto Pot

A 20-year-old Capistrano Beach community college sophomore and a Riverside truck driver will divide a $39-million Lotto jackpot, the second largest in California Lottery history, officials announced Thursday.

Christene E. Lentz and Robert K. Barnett claimed their prizes Thursday morning after the winning numbers were selected Wednesday night in a mechanized drawing delayed for half an hour by a technical glitch.

Each winner will receive 20 annual payments of $783,200, which represents $19.58 million minus federal income taxes, said Bob Taylor, a lottery spokesman. In winning the jackpot, they beat odds of about 14 million to 1.

“We haven’t slept yet,” said Christene’s mother, Joyce, as she stood in the doorway of the family’s two-story hillside home. “It’s still unbelievable and overwhelming.”

Christene, a theater arts major at Saddleback Community College in Mission Viejo, lives with her parents and 14-year-old sister, but she was not home Thursday afternoon. Her stepfather, an instructor at a Los Angeles County college, had taken Christene to his class to avoid publicity and find some quiet. Joyce Lentz said the family’s three telephone lines had been ringing nonstop since Christene’s name hit the news.

‘A Bit Stressful’

“Winning $19 million has been a bit stressful for her,” Joyce Lentz said. “You understand, don’t you?”

At first, the family was reluctant to talk. But with Christene out of the house, her mother, sighing and smiling often, recounted the moment she learned that her daughter had won.

“I had gone to bed early and was already asleep when I heard this loud scream,” she said. “Then I heard Christene bounding down the stairs, crying out: ‘I won! I won! I swear I won!’ ”

Christene has played Lotto frequently since she turned 18, the minimum age to play the game, her mother said, and Wednesday afternoon was no different. She went to Bob’s Liquor Store on Camino de Estrella, about five minutes from the Lentz home, and bought four tickets using the lottery’s Quick Pick option, in which a player’s numbers are selected by the computer. Christene reportedly spent the last $4 in her wallet.

Joyce Lentz, also a regular lottery player, spent $20 on tickets earlier Wednesday, to no avail.

‘Wanted to Be Sure’

That night, Christene’s sister, Collene, dutifully turned on the television shortly before 8 p.m. and jotted down the winning numbers. She then showed them to Christene, who checked her tickets. One of the tickets matched the numbers Collene had copied, but Lentz said Christene was suspicious that her sister might be teasing her.

“You know how sisters are,” Joyce Lentz said. “She didn’t believe Collene had gotten it right. She wanted to be sure.”

Christene immediately dialed the lottery’s 24-hour phone number to verify the winning numbers.

At that point, her mother said, “all I heard was this scream.”

No one could sleep, Joyce Lentz said, as the family spent the night talking about how “our life will change . . . we went through a lot of ‘what ifs.’ ”

By Thursday, when the family drove to the state lottery district offices in Orange to turn in the winning ticket, “we were exhausted,” Lentz said.

‘Happy but Controlled’

Herman C. Dustman, a lottery spokesman, said Christene and her family “were happy but controlled” when they entered the office. “To win all this money is kind of unsettling,” he said.

The family moved to Capistrano Beach in June from Grand Terrace, a small community near Riverside.

Coincidentally, Lentz said, her first husband, Christene’s father, works at Alumex, the same company that employs the other winner, Barnett.

Christene’s only immediate plans for the money are to buy a new car, her mother said. The two-door silver import she drives has 100,000 miles on it.

“Christene thinks she might be able to afford a new one now,” Joyce Lentz said.

No Celebration Plans

As for the future, Christene plans to finish her studies at Saddleback, where fall classes began Monday, and eventually attend a four-year university, Joyce Lentz said. Christene’s goal is to teach high school drama.

“I told her she could now buy her own theater,” she said.

There were no immediate plans for a big celebration. In fact, Joyce Lentz said, she had to go to work Thursday night to box a shipment of overdue parts. “The celebration,” she said, “will have to wait.”

Not so half a block away at the home of Bob Clanton, owner of the liquor store where Christene bought her winning ticket. Clanton said he would be “toasting the biggest day of my life.” Owners of stores where winning tickets are purchased receive 1/2% of the payoff--about $93,000 in Clanton’s case.

“I’ve had $1,000 winners before, but, heck, that’s $5,” he said. “But this is different. Real different.”

Help for Family

The bulk of the money, he said, will go to help two of his children--Mary, 29, and John, 23--who have been blind since birth. A third, Robert, 25, manages the liquor store, which Clanton has owned for 17 years.

Clanton said his daughter recently graduated from UCLA Law School and is now going to Leningrad to study Russian for four months as part of a Slavic studies program. John, who also does not speak, lives at home with Clanton and his wife.

“This money is a blessing because it will help pay for Mary’s studies,” Clanton said. “Oh, what a break this is.”

Clanton said he was at work early Thursday, cleaning up after the crush of Lotto players who had descended on the store, when the phone rang. The call was from lottery officials notifying him that one of the two winning tickets had been bought at his store. He was skeptical at first, but his doubt faded an hour later when lottery officials arrived at the store.

“They told me if I don’t hear from them in 48 hours, I’ll get the money,” said Clanton, looking most pleased as he was interviewed Thursday afternoon at his store. “I haven’t heard from them yet.”

Congratulations Offered

As a he talked, a string of customers stopped to shake his hand and ask whether the news was true.

Like Christene Lentz, Robert Barnett also bought his winning Quick Pick ticket on Wednesday, stopping at a convenience store on the way home from work, according to his son, Dan, 22, who added that he paid for it and three other entries with the last $4 in his wallet.

“I’m still in shock,” Robert Barnett said late Thursday evening after returning home from San Diego. He he had driven there in the morning to pick up his wife, who is being treated at a hospital for a degenerative muscle disease from which she has suffered for the past six years.

“Hopefully I can help out my family and enjoy it also,” said Barnett, who has three children. “I don’t really know how to handle this. . . . It’s taken a while to sink in.

‘A Hunch’

“I played a hunch. I play the hunches a lot of times,” he said, explaining that he spends about $10 a week playing Lotto 6/49.

He said one of his first thoughts upon realizing he had won was: “I just hope somebody else wins some of it too, because that’s just too much money for one person.”

Barnett’s daughter, Julie Lynch, 25, said her father threw an impromptu family party to celebrate Wednesday night. “We toasted and toasted and toasted. . . . We thanked the Lord and all that good stuff. We were up until all hours of the night, and (my father) was shaking so bad he couldn’t even write his name on the back of the ticket.”

“We just couldn’t believe it.”

Barnett said he has not yet decided how he will spend the money and that he plans to continue working at his $17-an-hour job at the Alumex aluminum plant in Riverside for at least the time being. “There are some loose ends to be tied up, and I didn’t want to make any rash decisions right at that moment.”