Willie and Brenda Scott were running out of money a few months ago. Willie Scott had wrecked the truck he was driving a year ago, and the couple had drained their savings.
Five days into a new job in Butner, he stopped at a convenience store on his way to work in August and bought a Powerball lottery ticket.
"What told me in my mind to stop was I saw (the jackpot) was up so high," he said. "I was, like, $178 million, that is a lot of money. I said, 'Well, it won't hurt. I'm already down.'"
The ticket won $800,000 for the Scotts.
"Forty years old and debt-free, it really feels good," Willie Scott said.
The Scotts used some of their winnings to purchase and renovate a building in Roxboro for a restaurant that they hope to open by the end of the month.
The restaurant will provide a few jobs in the community, and Brenda Scott said she and her husband feel like their prayers have been answered.
"I'm going to church every Sunday and doing the things I thought the Lord would have me do," she said. "When I was down to the point when I thought it wasn't going to go any farther down, he up and saved me, and I praised him for it."
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