COLUMBUS – The first winner of Ohio’s $1 million Vax-a-Million lottery says she’s still having a hard time believing it.
Abbigail Bugenske, a 22-year-old mechanical engineer, works for GE Aviation near Cincinnati, but returned to her suburban Cleveland home Wednesday night, where she received the call from Gov. Mike DeWine that she had won the prize.
“I was screaming enough that my parents thought I was crying and that something was wrong,” she told DeWine during a televised news conference Thursday morning.
“When I started yelling that I won a million dollars and that I was going to be a millionaire, they told me to calm down,” she said.
The winner of a full college scholarship was Joseph Costello, a 14-year-old eighth grader who lives near Dayton.
His mother, Colleen, says she had to sit down when DeWine called her with the news Wednesday before the official announcement.
Costello says he is considering attending Ohio State or Miami University.
The scholarship is billed as a four-year full ride to a state college or university but DeWine explained that the funds for the five scholarships are invested in the state 529 college savings program and are sufficient to cover tuition, room and board and books at the most expensive state school, but can be used at any institution.
Bugenske said she was already vaccinated when the lottery was announced and that signing up was “an easy decision to make. She said she plans to donate some of her windfall to charity, buy a used car and invest the remainder.
The lottery incentive has been credited with an increase in vaccinations since it was announced on May 12.
The day of the winners’ announcements 5,248,623 Ohioans had received at least one shot. The is 44.9% of the total population. Of that number, 4,600,643 – or 39.36% of the total population – were fully vaccinated.
The Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, in partnership with OhioHealth, will host on-site COVID-19 vaccination opportunities during the final three days of the PGA event at Muirfield Village Golf Club next week.
The facility will be located near the main entrance, adjacent to the Information tent on the west side of the practice area.
The vaccination station will be staffed by OhioHealth and offer Johnson & Johnson Janssen vaccines to Memorial fans from Friday, June 4 to Sunday, June 6, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
The 46th annual Memorial Tournament will be played from June 3-6.
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The state is no longer producing a weekly color-coded health advisory map to show how the coronavirus is spreading.
The decision comes less than a week before Ohio lifts most of its remaining health orders.
The Department of Health announced Thursday that there were 82.3 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 Ohio residents during the previous two weeks.
The state also reported fewer than 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 for the sixth straight day. The 732 new cases brought the total number of coronavirus cases in Ohio to 1,100,312.
There were 19,946 active cases and 749 of those patients were being treated in hospitals. An additional 111 patients were admitted to hospitals, the state reported Thursday.
A total of 59,012 have been hospitalized with COVID-19 since the pandemic began and 19,753 have died.
The seven-day positivity rate was 3.2%.