we live in a state that was fairly late in implementing a lottery. coming from a home that was always full of scratch-off tickets, i found it fairly amazing when we moved here that people had to drive to a neighboring state to play the lottery. personally, i didn’t view the effort as worth it but i guess many did.

well, the legal and public opposition to a state lottery was apparently pretty intense. the whole thing was set up to benefit education, and as such they decided to call it the state education lottery to acknowledge who really benefits from the proceeds. eventually, after much controversy, the legislation passed.

sounded weird to me, but whatever. we bought maybe 10 tickets when the whole program rolled out and shortly after that, our life changed dramatically. the hospital wanted its money, and lottery tickets were no longer something we could afford.

well, a couple of years after the whole thing got started, a couple of years after we had purchased any lottery tickets whatsoever, nontraditional student spouse wins the lottery- in the form of a state education lottery grant. this is a tremendous gift and a great relief to us as well.

thanks, everyone who buys lottery tickets. thanks from the bottom of our struggling student hearts.