SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(Business Wire)--
Soft-spoken and extraordinarily polite, Mike Wallace from Fresno
would have welcomed the minimum prize any Big Spin contestant
receives, but his story and his luck gave him much more on this week's
California Lottery Big Spin show. The show aired statewide Saturday,
June 21, 2008. The grand total won this week was $142,500!
Wallace has a son, Alex, who is 10 years old. Alex has had two
organ transplants and one of those, a kidney, has failed. So Alex is
on dialysis, waiting for medical approval before another transplant
can be considered. Wallace had won his way to the game show's Aces
High where he faced nine other contestants. Somehow, luck was with
him. So were onlookers who had learned his story. Wallace then won his
way to the big wheel where host Pat Finn asked what he hoped for. He
replied, "Making my little boy's dreams come true." With that the
proud father gave the wheel a spin and, in time, it stopped on
$40,000. "This is wonderful," Wallace said as he, his wife and
daughter, who were in the audience, knew the prize would pay for a
trip to Disneyworld when Alex can travel.
Other big winners of the day included Jim Thorpe of Spring Valley
and Bob Sharp of Monrovia. Both played the Fantasy 5 Dream Machine.
Thorpe won $60,000 and plans a train ride with his wife to the
Mississippi River. They will stop and eat at barbeque restaurants.
Sharp won $20,000 and received loud congratulations from a group in
the studio audience that Sharp called, "The best friends a guy could
have."
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Winners Summary
NAME CITY AMOUNT
----------------- ----------------- --------
Jim Thorpe Spring Valley $60,000
Mike Wallace Fresno $40,000
Bob Sharp Monrovia $20,000
Cruz Romero Los Angeles $5,000
Sandra Greene Los Angeles $4,000
Lilia Ayala Los Angeles $2,500
Aleli Estacio Altadena $2,000
Brian Jackson Cypress $2,000
Mardin Amiri Los Gatos $1,750
Randy Fox Yucaipa $1,750
James Hunter Los Angeles $1,750
Rafael Plasencia Rohnert Park $1,750
TOTAL $142,500
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For high resolution photos of Mike Wallace, Jim Thorpe or Bob
Sharp please contact (916) 324-9639 or e-mail newsroom@calottery.com.
More than 95 cents of every Lottery dollar is returned to the
community in the form of contributions to education, prizes and retail
commissions. The California Lottery contributes at least 34 cents of
every dollar that players spend on Lottery products to public
education and returns more than 50 percent of sales to players in the
form of prizes. Since its inception in 1985, the Lottery has
contributed more than $20 billion to California schools out of total
sales of nearly $55 billion. Retailers benefit too, earning $3.5
billion in compensation since 1985.
www.calottery.com
California Lottery
Al Lundeen or Cathy Doyle Johnston, 916-324-9639
Copyright Business Wire 2008
