Photo: Jerry Eveland in a hallway at Streit-Perham Hall. (Photo by Robert Hubner, WSU Photo Services).
For many years, Jerry Eveland has used what he calls his “system” for playing the lottery. Once a week, he buys three $1 lottery tickets, selecting numbers randomly generated by the game’s computer, as he commutes between his home in Potlatch, Idaho, and his job as a custodian at Streit-Perham Hall on the Pullman campus.
On Oct. 15, his system paid off big time.
Eveland won $200,000 from the Idaho Powerball Lottery.
“I was stunned,” he recalled. “I heard it on the radio and remembered that I had two of the numbers, so I stopped and checked my ticket. I couldn’t believe it.”
Despite his good fortune, Eveland expects to keep working at WSU. He has been a custodian at various buildings on the Pullman campus since 2000. Before that, he retired from the University of Idaho after working there as a custodian and in maintenance for 29 years.
“After retiring, I kept working because I wanted to earn more money,” he explained.
Prior to this, Eveland said he once won $100.
“This is great,” Eveland said. “My wife and I will finally get to have some things we’ve gone without for a few years.”
