Retired School Bus Driver Fighting Cancer Wins $78K in Lottery

KOKOMO, Ind. — Marilyn Dunlap retired from her career as a school bus driver to battle cancer. Now she has some extra money for retirement thanks to a winning lottery ticket.

Dunlap and her husband enjoy playing Indiana’s Hoosier Lottery. On June 7, her husband bought a $5 “7 Scratch-off” at a convenience store in Kokomo, where they live. He scratched the ticket, saw that it was a winner, and gave it to his wife.

The couple didn’t immediately know what they had won, so they scanned the ticket with a Hoosier Lottery app. The verdict: a $77,777 jackpot.

The next day, Dunlap and her daughter drove to the Hoosier Lottery office in Indianapolis to claim the prize.

Dunlap said that she loved working as a school bus driver; she only left the job to deal with her cancer treatment. Her retirement will be a bit easier with the lottery prize money, which she’ll use to pay off her car and other bills. She said she’ll also use the money for a trip to California with her grandson, who just graduated from college.

Along with payments to winners and retailers, the Hoosier Lottery in fiscal year 2017 contributed $30 million to local police and firefighter pensions, $30 million to the Teachers' Retirement Fund, and $228 million to the Build Indiana Fund.