Linn County Man Cashes In After Buying Lottery Tickets at His Own Business

Sunday, October 4 was a very good day for Don Burd of Hiawatha.

Burd, the owner of the Otter Creek Country Store in Robins, stopped by his store Sunday morning on shall we say, personal business. When he picked up his check Monday at the Iowa Lottery headquarters in Clive, Iowa, he told them, "All last week, I was thinking to myself, 'Well, this game's got great odds, at 40,000 to 1,' so I thought, 'Maybe today's the day.'" He was absolutely right, as you can see from the check below.

The 56-year-old Burd, of Hiawatha, reports that he purchased a handful of tickets in the InstaPlay game, Extreme Green Progressive. The jackpot starts at $20,000 so, needless to say, Burd did pretty well for himself. As a matter of fact, the $276,296 he won is the largest amount of money awarded in InstaPlay thus far. The previous high was $173,725. That was won by Nick Keeling of Norwalk in the summer of 2018. Burd also won more than $64,000 with InstaPlay in December of 2018.

Burd isn't sure what he'll do with his winnings, saying he'll think on it. One thing is for sure, though. Burd will continue to support the local volunteer fire department. He donates the fuel to power the fire trucks. That's something everyone can appreciate, and it didn't take winning $276,000+ to start doing it.

Congratulations, Don, and thanks for donating to your community!