$19M Lotto winner still going to work

Thursday, April 20, 2006 posted 03:38 AM EDT

Town of Wallkill - It's 2 p.m. on a late spring day, and the sun is beating down white hot in front of the Price Chopper supermarket.

It's where Amelia Pagan likes to go during her cigarette breaks, squatting beside the $6.99 shrubs in the shade of the storefront.

She looks too young to be 22, working at a job that pays $8.50 an hour so she can raise her two kids. Furthest from her mind are thoughts about a $19 million lottery jackpot and what it would be like to have that much money.

And yet one of Pagan's co-workers has achieved that dream.

As it turns out, the winner of the $19 million Lotto jackpot is a Middletown mother of two and Price Chopper employee named Doreen Patterson, according to an official list provided by New York Lottery.

Store officials declined to talk about Patterson, citing her privacy. Patterson also turned down an interview request.

But information acquired through interviews with some of her co-workers and public records provide a picture of Patterson, 48, whose dedication to work represents the best of those who must slog through life with a smile.

Her fellow workers said that Patterson is a well-liked and cheerful employee who continued to show up for work even after she learned of her winnings.

"I saw her running around this morning with her blue work shirt, and everything," said one employee, who did not identify herself.

"She doesn't want to be interviewed," said Jessica Scherer,a worker at Central Market Florist inside the store.

"People have already started hounding her about it."

Patterson's $19 million jackpot is the largest jackpot claimed in the Times Herald-Record coverage area of any New York Lottery game.

Jie Lin of Kingston won the second biggest payout of $8 million by playing King Kong Millions Sweepstakes in January.

Since 1982, 45 people from Orange, Ulster and Sullivan counties have won $1 million or more in the New York games.

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