$150-Million Lottery Prize Won by Office Worker, 21

A 21-year-old woman who makes $9 an hour at a mortgage company called her boss to say she wouldn’t be in because of a death in the family, then stepped forward Thursday to claim a $150-million Powerball lottery jackpot.

Farrah Slad beat 80-million-to-1 odds to win the third-biggest prize ever in the multi-state lottery and one of the richest jackpots ever claimed by an individual.

Slad said she bought $5 worth of tickets at a store after stopping because her 1991 Acura Integra was running low on gas. She was on the way to her parents’ house for dinner and hadn’t bought any tickets since last summer.

“I thank my parents and my car for this,” the single woman said with a big smile at lottery headquarters in this St. Paul suburb.

Slad held the only winning ticket for Wednesday night’s drawing, which had a jackpot of $150 million to be paid over 25 years. She elected instead to receive a lump sum of $78.8 million, or $50.4 million after state and federal taxes are withheld.

Slad saw the winning numbers on television Wednesday night while rewinding a videotape of “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.”

“We looked it over a hundred times, and it didn’t seem real,” she said.

Slad, who lives in Brainerd, called her boss at MorNorth mortgage Wednesday night and told him a family member had died and she wouldn’t be in to work Thursday. After a sleepless night spent pondering the possibilities, she stepped forward for her prize.

On her list: travel to Mexico, a new car and a house, do “good deeds” and possibly attend veterinary school. She also plans to buy a house, trucks and boats for her parents. And she acknowledged: “I’m going to meet people who say they’ve known me forever.”

She hadn’t even told her three siblings or her roommate in her $510-a-month apartment before claiming the prize. “I wanted to come here to verify. I wanted somebody to tell me I am the winner,” she said.

The largest jackpot won by an individual was $197 million, won by a nanny in Boston in April in the multi-state Big Game lottery.

Powerball, based in Iowa, began in 1992 and is played in 20 states and the District of Columbia.