Frank Gale fgale@thewesternstar.com Published on July 7, 2017 – Myra Bourgeois, winner of the Atlantic Lottery 6-49 from the July 28 draw, vowed on Friday to help people who have helped her along the way in life.

She accepted her cheque for $4,247,053 from Atlantic Lottery Corporation representatives at a celebration in Days Inn, Stephenville, with a room full of supporters on hand, including her son Justin, who turns 33 in August and is now taking the summer off from his scaffolding job in Alberta.

In addition to having plans to build or buy a dream home in the Bay St. George area, the 52-year-old Kippens woman hopes at some point to complete the second year of her business administration course at College of the North Atlantic.

“I still want to walk across the stage with that diploma in my hand,” she said. In the early morning hours of July 29, Bourgeois said she heard on the news of a winning 6/49 ticket in Stephenville.

She pulled up the numbers and checked the one she had bought the night before and unfortunately it wasn’t a winner.

Then she thought of the free ticket she had won, pulled that out and couldn’t believe her eyes when all the numbers matched. It was 6:40 a.m. that she called her friend Marlene Olsen to come over, who confirmed that she was right – all the numbers matched.

They then called another friend of four decades, Sharon Hall from Cold Brook but didn’t tell her what was up for fear she would get in an accident.

“She thought something was really wrong but went from down there to up here,” she said of her thinking something dreadful had happened to learning about the win.

One of her plans is to travel with close girlfriends on a shopping spree to New York City.