What do you do with your losing lottery tickets? Nerva E. Irvine of the Medical Department recycles hers, and with great success.
On April 14 she won $100,000 a year for life in a Lottery Commission drawing which she entered by sending in three of her losing tickets in the Wild 20 II game.
Mrs. Irvine, who came to this country from Tobago in the West Indies in 1970, said the whole thing is simply unbelievable. "I was the eighth finalist chosen. My first son was born the eighth day, my second son the eighth month, and I know I sent in approximately eight sets of tickets."
There are no immediate plans for dramatic changes in her life, she said. Mrs. Irvine is an administrative assistant who has been at the Medical Department for 18 years "and being at MIT for 20 years is important to me and I will probably try for that."
She said she "won't have to worry about tuition" anymore, referring to her sons, one in college and one in high school.
Her husband Hugh-they've been married for 30 years-will continue working in Tarrytown, N.Y., as an assembler in the General Motors plant, and making the four-hour drive home on Friday nights, she said.
"He worked at GM in Framingham for years, but lost that job when the plant closed," Mrs. Irvine said. He was out of work for a while until he was called to New York.
"I have only one regret about all of this," Mrs. Irvine said. "The MIT Medical Department didn't get mentioned on television."
A version of this article appeared in the April 28, 1993 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 37, Number 30).
