Group Shares Holiday Blessing: $50 Million

Thanksgiving was great, and Christmas will be even better, for 43 people in this tiny town who won a $50-million lottery jackpot.

Peggy Dickson, a bookkeeper at the Terry Cotton Gin and organizer of the pool, was first to find out about the win Wednesday night. She called everyone who had pitched in $10 each to buy tickets.

“They just couldn’t believe it. Some of them kept calling me back to verify,” Dickson said.

She bought the tickets for the $50-million Lotto Texas jackpot, the biggest of the year so far, on her way to a dental appointment. She stopped at the Longhorn Liquor Store in Sweetwater. The winners would get $1.16 million each, or about $58,000 for 20 years.