Perseverance, lottery luck pay off greatly for Fairview pair
Her husband has always called her "the lucky one."
Yesterday, she proved him right.
Pat Bates, 57, of Fairview, won a lottery sum of $500,000, making her the recipient of the largest Tennessee Powerball prize to date.
Bates said she and her husband buy lottery tickets twice a week from Lindsey's Office Supply in Fairview and she knew that some day, her perseverance would pay off.
But she said she had no idea that the rewards would be so grand.
"I told (my husband) a while back, 'I'm gonna win one of these days,' " she said. "But I never dreamed I'd get money like this."
Bates and her husband have owned a printing company in Fairview for the past 14 years. She said they were out delivering orders yesterday afternoon when she remembered that she had the lottery numbers in her purse. In one phone call, her husband discovered that they were winners.
"I'm just excited," her husband, John, said. "We're just common working people, and we're just gonna keep working but we might try to slow down a little bit."
The store from which Bateses routinely purchases her tickets has been a source of controversy in the Fairview community since the lottery began, when elders of the Fairview Church of Christ decided to stop buying its supplies at a business that sold lottery tickets.
Church officials declined to comment. But Brad and Lorena Lindsey, owners of the store, said the boycott has not affected sales.
Nevertheless, the Lindseys said they hope the lottery win will change the church's perspective. "I can't see how the church could think it's bad," said Brad Lindsey. "It sure made my day and I didn't even win. It couldn't have happened to two nicer people how could anything so good be wrong?"
Bates said that other than paying some bills, she and her husband have not had the time to decide how to spend their winnings.
"We're just poor people working-class people don't usually win anything like this. I've had to struggle all my life," Bates said.
"I don't know what to do with this kind of money because I never thought I would have this much."
Yes, a lump sum.