INSPIRATION

 

Powerball lottery winners live modestly, give back to hometown

by Kevin Murphy, Reuters

CAMDEN POINT, Mo. - Three months after winning half of the biggest Powerball lottery jackpot in U.S. history, Mark Hill still meets friends for morning coffee at a local convenience store.

And that Camaro sports car Hill considered buying with his winnings? He got a pick-up truck instead.

While some lottery winners fritter away their fortunes or meet tragic ends, not much has outwardly changed for Mark and Cindy Hill since they won half of a $587 million Powerball jackpot in November. They netted $136.5 million in a lump-sum payment after taxes.

“They are very conservative people,” said Walt Stubbs, a friend and former high school classmate of the Hills. “They are doing some really nice things for the community and they’ve taken care of their family.”

The Hills are giving money to civic projects in Mark Hill’s hometown of Camden Point, Missouri, and still live in nearby Dearborn, Missouri, as they did before winning the jackpot.

The Hills will pay for a new Camden Point fire station and ball field and gave the town more than $50,000 to buy land for a new sewage treatment plant that will eventually allow residents to give up individual septic tanks, Mayor Kevin Boydston said.

“I’ve said all along that these lottery winnings could not have gone to a better couple,” Boydston said. “They are giving back to the community, just like they said they would.”

Camden Point has fewer than 500 residents and is wedged into hills in a rural area about 30 miles north of Kansas City. Its downtown has a series of mostly empty brick buildings.

Stubbs, chief of the area’s volunteer fire department, said the new station is planned to connect directly to main roads, a major improvement on the current fire hall, which does not have quick access to highways.

“It’s a situation where if we had to do it ourselves, it would take 25 years,” Stubbs said.

The winning couple graduated from North Platte High School in Dearborn and have donated to a scholarship fund at that school.

The Hills, in their early 50s, told reporters at a news conference after winning the lottery they would stay in the area and give a lot of the money away. Mark Hill quit his job as a mechanic. Cindy Hill was out of work at the time. “I’m real proud of them,” said Shirley Hill, Mark Hill’s mother. “They have stayed grounded. That’s their nature.