Throwback Thursday: Cherry Hill teacher became millionaire overnight after winning Powerball drawing in 2009
Palmira Nicolo, formerly an Italian teacher at Cherry Hill High School West, claimed the prize nearly four months after the actual drawing. She filed for retirement shortly after winning.
Big money lottery jackpots are all over the news early in July. The Mega Millions Lottery grand prize jumped to more than $500 million on July 6. In addition, the Powerball Lottery jackpot entered the July 6 drawing with a grand prize of a little more than $250 million.
The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are one in 258,890,850. Those odds are even slimmer with the Powerball, where a ticket holder has a one in 292,201,338 chance to win.
Winning the jackpot is not easy. Earlier this year, Time Magazine reported people were more likely to be struck by lightning, dye from a bee sting or become a movie star than to win the lottery.
However, some people do defy the odds and win the jackpot. Seven years ago, one of those lucky jackpot winners had a connection to Cherry Hill.
In 2009, The Sun published a story on Palmira Nicolo, an Italian teacher at Cherry Hill High School West who won the Powerball jackpot during the Feb. 28 drawing of that year. Nicolo announced she had the winning ticket more than three months after the drawing. Nicolo split a jackpot worth $174.4 million with another winner. In all, Nicolo brought home $46,629,112.16 in a lump sum.
A resident of Wyndmoor, Pa., at the time, Nicolo applied for early retirement from teaching shortly after winning the jackpot. Joe Meloche, currently the superintendent of Cherry Hill Public Schools and formerly principal at Cherry Hill High School West, said in 2009 no one had any idea Nicolo had won the lottery.
“To replace her in the culture and fabric of the school will be difficult to do. She was the heart and soul of the Italian program in Cherry Hill West,” Meloche said in 2009. “She’s probably finally being paid what she deserves. It couldn’t have happened to a better or more deserving person.”
Nicolo purchased the ticket at the Plymouth Meeting Mall in Montgomery County. When she claimed the prize, she asked lottery officials to deny any media requests for interviews. However, the Pennsylvania Lottery did quote Nicolo in a press release that year where she stated she would continue playing the lottery even after winning the Powerball.
