Most people say they would quit their jobs if they won the lottery, but Wisconsin Lottery winner and body shop owner Richard Duening is going to keep on fixing cars.
Duening, who owns J Auto Body & Service in Sheboygan, Wis., and his two friends, Curtis Lienau and Barbara Knauf, won $9.1 million from the Wisconsin Lottery Megabucks jackpot drawing on Nov. 9.
“I love working with cars, so I’m not going to change,” Duening said. “Things are just going to be easier.”
The trio, who purchased tickets at the same gas station every week for the past decade, decided on a lump sum payment option that will give each person $1.17 million after taxes, the Sheboygan Press reported.
Duening and his friends met weekly for coffee at his shop to pool together lottery ticket money, a habit Knauf’s husband equated to “throwing money down the sewer,” she said.
Now that they’ve finally struck it big, each winner said they’ll use the money to pay off debts and help their families. Duening said the win was “overwhelming.”
Lieunau, 67, a bagger and maintenance worker at the local Pick ‘N’ Save grocery store, said he’ll retire in one year. Initially shocked by the unlikely win, Lieunau called in sick to the grocery store for several weeks, claiming he had a “financial crisis.”
“I finally told them that I won the lottery,” he said.
