Lotto winner keeping job at Super A
Lynn Lepine takes away $250,000
Sarah Ladik
Northern News Services
Monday, June 29, 2015
HAY RIVER
The morning Lynn Lepine learned she had won $250,000, she made two calls.
The first was to her husband, telling him of their good fortune. The second was to her boss, telling him she would be late for work.
"I had to come in," she said, at her job at Super A's garden centre last week. "I had a lot of pallets to unload."
Lepine found out she was substantially richer at the end of May, and said it took two weeks or so for the cheque to get to Hay River. She said it was strange walking around knowing that it was on its way, but not yet having it. Still, she said she checks her online banking site every morning to make sure it's still there.
"It's been almost a month and it's still surreal," she said.
The first thing she and her husband did was buy him a new Screaming Eagle Harley Davidson motorcycle, something she said he has been wanting for a long time. Next on the list was a boat and trailer for Lepine, though she made sure to hold off on the purchase until the money was in her account.
"I am now the proud owner of a 16-foot Lund and a new trailer," she said.
Steve Anderson, a Super A co-owner, said his employee's good luck was well-deserved.
"It was definitely great to see Lynn win," he told News/North. "We're really so very excited for her and her family. It's also very nice to see her continue to work with us... she definitely has a green thumb."
Lepine said she would never quit her job, no matter how much she won. Although she prefers to work in the garden centre during the summer season, she said the clients at the store itself make the work worthwhile.
"I wouldn't quit my job," she said. "There's nowhere I'd rather be than the garden centre and at the store. I love my customers and my colleagues."
As for those asking her if she'll pay off her house and leave the community, Lepine said the house she moved into back in 1988 is already paid off and she hasn't wanted to leave since.
"Ninety-nine per cent of the people who have come up to me have congratulated me," she said. "They told me they were happy for me, and that just reinforces my love for Hay River."
