Merle and Patricia Butler today. (AP)
Merle Butler nonchalantly walked into the local bank one recent Saturday morning, asking for his safe-deposit box.
A chuckling teller said he must have won the lottery and Butler jokingly agreed — only it was no joke.
The retired computer analyst and his wife had, just a few sleepless hours earlier, scored one-third of the world’s biggest draw.
“I just laughed it off,” Butler recalled of his not-so-routine bank visit. “She [the teller] doesn’t know until right now, I really had that ticket.“
Butler and his wife, Patricia, of Red Bud, Ill., came forward today to claim a $218.6 million check they won in the Mega Million drawing on March 30.
The past 2 1/2 weeks has been a blur for the Butlers, meeting with lawyers and financial planners.
“It looks like I have another full-time job, thank the Lord,” Merle Butler, 65. told reporters gathered at Village Hall in their small farming town.
The thrifty Midwest couple said they’re looking at all sorts of savings and investment options.
“Could possibly be a vacation,” said Butler, who worked for 25 years for General American Life Insurance. “But we don’t know when yet … this looks looks like a full-time job, it looks like. You’d be surprised all it involves.”
The 65-year-old hubby recounted how he purchased the ticket — a $3 Quick Pick– from a MotoMart convenience store in the 3,700-resident town, 40 miles outside St. Louis.
They were in bed, watching the 10 p.m. newscast, as he jotted down the winning numbers with a pencil.
“The first thing I spotted was I had the [Mega Ball, final number] and thought ‘Good I’m going to win something anyway,’ “ Butler said.
“Then I started on the numbers 2, 4, and the further I went, the more they matched.”
His 62-year-old wife is a retired program analyst for Edward Jones.
She couldn’t stop smiling the night of their big win, Butler said: “She started giggling and she giggled for about four hours, I think.”
Patricia Butler said she was just happy to be back in Red Bud today, after traveling around the region to meet with money planners.
“It’s just very exciting,” she said. “We’ve been meeting with a lot of people, just not here in town.”
The couple, married 41 years, has no plans to leave their cozy town.
“This is a nice, comfortable, family-oriented community,” Mr. Butler said. “We’ve lived here a long time. We don’t plan to go anywhere else.”
The record $656 million Mega Millions jackpot was split between the Butlers and other winners in Maryland and Kansas.
The Maryland winner was a trio of public-school educators — and not a crazed McDonald’s employee who claimed to have the magical ticket.
Fast-food flake Mirlande Wilson said she had the big-money ticket, purchased in a group of her McDonald’s colleagues, and didn’t intend to share.