SALT LAKE CITY - A group of University of Utah employees loaded up in a party bus en route to Boise, Idaho, on Friday morning to claim $1 million in lottery winnings.
Since 2001, employees from the university's HVAC shop have been pooling money together and buying lottery tickets using the same numbers.
Steve Hughes bought the winning ticket when he was at a Flying J truck stop in Idaho.
He had stopped to get gas and, while he was inside paying, his dog Stella locked the truck doors. He says he decided to buy a ticket since he was stuck there.
"It was like 6 degrees outside, and I pulled into a Flying J and I went in and I filled my truck up and left my dogs in the truck, and when I came back out, the dogs had locked the doors, so we were stuck at the Flying J and decided to get the tickets there," Hughes said.
That $10 ticket was worth the hassle. Thirty-three employees will get to split the million dollar jackpot, and twenty of them loaded up into a party bus on Friday morning and collected their prize.
"We got a bus this morning, we're going to head up and I think it's going to be an all day thing. We'll probably get back about when it looks like this tonight," Hughes said. "Here we are. We're on a bus, up here in Idaho. Winning the lottery! We're excited about it."
That million dollars split 33 ways adds up to just under $20,000 apiece after taxes.
