A Group Of Current And Former Kentucky Teachers Win The Powerball Jackpot

Here’s hope if you do office pools for the lottery!

A group of 30 current and former employees at Rector A. Jones Middle School in Florence, Kentucky matched five numbers in Saturday, Jan. 27’s Powerball drawing, winning $1 million. They even gave themselves a nickname: “Jones 30”.

A retired math teacher was the group organizer and figured out they had a winning ticket, and decided to keep the ticket safe in a math textbook, because “nobody looks in a math book.”

They all carpooled to the Kentucky Lottery office in Louisville last week to collect their winnings. 

They’ve been doing this office pool for the Lottery for more than eight years. “We all taught at the same school at one point or another,” one winner said. “We’ve got counselors, admins, special ed teachers, the school nurse… Some have moved on or retired, but we still continue to do it. We’ve remained buddies for all of these years.”

The Jones 30 have been picking the same numbers each time they play since 2019. Do the numbers have a special meaning? Nope. 

“Our math teacher and assistant principal pulled them out of a hat,” one winner explained. “At first, we didn’t have the right amount of numbers to choose from, so we drew again. Thank goodness we did.”

After taxes, each person in the Jones 30 will receive $24,000, and the Kroger in Hebron, Kentucky, where the winning ticket was sold, will receive $10,000.