Kentucky woman wins $150,000 in Powerball jackpot, honors her father’s memory
By Alexis Barrett
Click here for updates on this story
MURRAY, Kentucky (WPSD) — A Murray woman memorialized her father in a way few have done before: by winning $150,000.
On Feb. 23, Shannon Williams of Murray stopped at Max Fuel Express in Hopkinsville on her way back from Tennessee, where she had just memorialized her father, Kerry, who had passed away in 2022.
“I was right at the edge of Hopkinsville, Ky., and I stopped and grabbed a drink,” said Williams, who raised American Quarter Horses with her dad. “And on the way out the door, because the sun was shining and it was an amazing weekend, I decided to turn around and walk back in, and I said: ‘I’m going to play the Powerball because I feel like my dad is with me.’ It was his birthday weekend, and I just had this overwhelming feeling. So, I bought the ticket.”
Williams had only played Powerball once before.
“I lost my dad on Dec. 5, 2022, which is a very important day because on Dec. 5, 2019, we were eating at a restaurant in Paris, Tennessee,” she said. “And our fortune cookie had numbers on it. So we’re sitting at the table, and I said, ‘We’re going to play the Powerball and win.'”
“My dad and I took that picture to show what our expressions were going to be when we won the Powerball,” Williams said.
Just over five years later, their dream came true.
Williams, a logistics manager for a supplier in Murray, said she realized her Powerball ticket might be a winner the next night after the drawing around 11:30 p.m.
After taxes, Williams received nearly $110,000, which she intends to use to build the barn her father would have wanted, a front porch to watch the sunset, and to make donations to the American Cancer Society and St. Jude Children’s Hospital in memory of her father and nephew, respectively.
Williams’ father owned Last Chance Farms in Puryear, TN., and after buying the ticket , Williams headed to Rowdy Acres Farm in Elkton, Ky.
, where she is training a colt, Cadillac. Williams has eight horses on her farm in Murray, but Cadillac is the only colt that she and her dad raised together.
“I’m going to build the barn that my daddy wanted me to have for all these horses I’ve worked so hard for the past two years,” Williams said. “I feel that my dad would be very proud.”
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
