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Tammy Gordy, a 56-year-old dietary aide from Ottumwa, Iowa, won a $2-million Powerball prize in Saturday’s drawing, allowing her and her husband to finally finish work on the home they lost to a tornado more than 20 years ago. Gordy was shocked when she first saw all the zeros in her prize amount.“I fell into my chair. I was like, 'Maybe I need my glasses,'” she recalls, “So yeah, we screamed.”
With their win, Gordy and her husband Steve will be able to expedite the construction on the home they’ve been building for the last two decades. And they’re even going to be able to afford to make a few upgrades including “a walk-in closet and a Jacuzzi tub.”
When Gordy told her boss about the win, she asked for a couple of days off. “And so he says, 'Well, congratulations, if you're not April Foolin' me!,’” she recalls. And he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t believe the good news: Gordy’s four adult children thought she was joking, to which she says, “I am a jokester, but not to that extent.”