FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. – Two Atlanta Falcons fans are among the early beneficiaries of the NFL franchise’s new relationship with the Georgia Lottery and both seem to have luck to thank in more than one way.
Jurlene Reddick, a grandmother of six from Thomasville, was the first to win season tickets for 2010 and Chris Greeson, 34, of Acworth won a $10,000 prize as a result of a Week 1 promotion at the Georgia Dome.
Tommy McDowell, 51, of Griffin won one of the $500,000 prizes. Three more $500,000 prizes remain for the $5 scratch ticket.
When Reddick purchased two tickets, she had the thought in her mind of how nice it would be to see the Falcons play in the Georgia Dome. She had been to the Dome just once in her life and that was to see the hometown Thomas County Central Yellow Jackets play in the high school football state semifinals.
She bought her ticket by chance on a drive from her hometown, about 230 miles southwest of Atlanta, to Cairo. Her truck was running low on gas so she stopped to fill up about halfway there in the tiny town of Pine Park.
At the service station, the Falcons’ ticket caught her eye and she decided to give her luck a chance. Her first ticket yielded $10. Her second revealed a “TD” symbol.
She called her husband Leroy, who had also played the game, to see what it meant.
“‘I knew if anyone would win it would be you,’” Reddick said her husband told her. “I thought it would be really nice if we could afford to see the Atlanta Falcons play, not knowing what the Lord had in store.”
With the distance between Thomasville and Atlanta, Reddick said she would be more than happy to stay over night. Her prize also comes with $1,000 to spend at the Dome.
Reddick said she was thinking of purchasing a Matt Ryan jersey.
Just as Reddick made a chance stop to gas up and ended up purchasing a ticket, Greeson, who often attends games, said he had not expected to attend the Sept. 13 season opener.
He is the sales manager of Wade Ford in Smyrna and Falcons backup quarterback Chris Redman had just purchased a truck for his father.
At the close of the sale, Redman provided tickets for Greeson who brought his father-in-law and his 3-year-old daughter, Ansley. Greeson said he usually would arrive early and enter through Gate D on Northside Drive.
Instead, he showed up later than he normally would and brought Ansley to Falcons’ Landing. When it was time to enter the Dome, he entered by a different gate than usual.
He heard someone pestering him to hand him something and was prepared to give her the brush off until she said, “Sir, you need this.”
It was a “briefcase” supplied by the Georgia Lottery as part of their “Deal or No Deal”-style promotion at halftime to give away $10,000. When the winning number 596 was shown on the scoreboard, Greeson was in disbelief.
He grabbed Ansley and went to look for a lottery official. He couldn’t find one, but searched again after the third quarter and that time was able to claim his prize.
He got to relive the draw last week as part of a 30-minute show the lottery put together and aired on television. He had forgotten that the prize also came with two free tickets on AirTran.
“It happened so fast I didn’t get to absorb it,” Greeson said. “…My wife said, ‘You didn’t tell me about no plane tickets.’ I forgot. It’s a really a cool deal.”
