$1 million lottery winner with cancer runs out of time

Thursday, April 26, 2007 posted 10:53 AM EDT

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Wayne Schenk, who won $1 million in the lottery shortly after finding out he had terminal cancer, has died. He was 51.

Schenk had tried to get the lottery to give him a lump sum so he could enter a hospital that specialized in treating advanced cancer. His prize pays out in $50,000 annual installments over 20 years.

Lottery officials said they were sympathetic but couldn’t break the rules to give him a lump sum. He had received just $34,000 of his winnings by the time of his death.

Schenk died Monday at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Syracuse, according to the Baird-Moore Funeral Home.

On Jan. 12, Schenk won $1 million playing a $5 scratch-off ticket in the New York State Lottery’s High Stakes Blackjack. Five weeks earlier, he had found out that he had less than a year to live because of inoperable lung cancer.

He planned to leave his winnings to his wife, Joan, friend Nick Pascazi said.

Cat expert in cycle crash, avoiding cat in N.Y. road

Cornell University cat veterinarian James Richards, who was injured when he crashed his motorcycle trying to avoid a cat in the road, has died, the university said Wednesday. He was 58.

Richards, a native of Richmond and director of Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine’s Feline Health Center, was thrown from his motorcycle near Ithaca, N.Y. on Sunday, according to police. He died Tuesday.

Richards appeared on network and cable television to discuss the world of cats. An authority on vaccination protocols, he was a former president of the American Association of Feline Practitioners and author of several books and articles, including the “ASPCA Complete Guide to Cats.”

Richards held a mathematics degree from Berea College in Kentucky and his D.V.M. from Ohio State University. He joined the Cornell veterinary college in 1991.

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