Barber Jimmy Squire dreams of building a trade school in Richmond for young people to learn a skill.
A customer walks past a Virginia Lottery booth on Thursday, July 21, 2022, at Davis Market in Richmond.
Virginia Mega Millions player Jimmy Squire, a barber from Richmond, holds up his lottery tickets on Thursday, July 21, 2022, at Davis Market in Richmond. The Mega Millions is currently at $660 million, the fifth highest it’s ever been.
ABOVE: Mega Millions player Jimmy Squire, a barber at Legacy Grooming Lounge, waited Thursday for the cashier at Davis Market in Richmond to give him his lottery tickets.
One of the biggest lottery jackpots in history is up for grabs on Friday night, and Richmonders were lining up Thursday in the hopes of turning a $2 investment into an estimated $660 million Mega Millions jackpot — a return that, at least for the moment, outpaces inflation.
Local barber Jimmy Squire was among those taking his chances.
“You got to be in it to win it,” he said. “You never know.”
This is the fifth time in 20 years the Mega Millions jackpot has surpassed $600 million. Friday, six numbers will be drawn to determine if a lucky someone, or someones, will take home the huge prize.
The winner has the option of taking the prize as an annuity or as a lump sum of $376.9 million in cash, though the government will want its share, too. An estimated $105.5 million in tax would be withheld on the lump sum, not counting potential income tax obligations.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350. The tickets are sold in 45 states and the District of Columbia.
In Virginia, Mega Millions tickets are sold by the Virginia Lottery. Unaudited results show that in the previous fiscal year, $92.6 million in Mega Millions tickets were sold in the commonwealth.
That’s far short of the amount Virginians spent on scratch-off tickets ($1.3 billion) and less than the amount of tickets sold for competing mega-jackpot drawing Powerball ($133.4 million).
The Mega Millions jackpot hasn’t been won since April 15, when the winner received a paltry $20 million since there had been another winner in the previous drawing. Twenty-seven consecutive drawings have happened without anyone matching all six numbers.
On Tuesday, the winning numbers were 2, 31, 32, 37 and 70, and the Mega Ball was 25. But once again, there were no perfect tickets. However, 2,380,347 entries won prizes at other levels.
Squire bought three tickets at Davis Market in Richmond on Thursday hoping he’d be the lucky one.
“It’s just something that I like to do,” he said. “I have a Cash 5 number that I like to play, and I just play it every day. ... But when the Mega Millions gets high like this, I give it a chance because you never know. Anybody can hit it.”
As Friday’s stakes have risen, the excitement has grown. People who don’t normally play Mega Millions decided to give it a try at the market on Thursday.
“I feel great,” said one customer, who identified himself as Shameek. “I definitely already won.”
Shameek said his strategy is to use the ages of his seven children for the Mega Ball choice. If he wins, he said he would buy property in Puerto Rico for his whole family and take a vacation to Europe.
Squire is a barber at Legacy Grooming Lounge and has lived in Richmond his entire life. If he wins, he said he would build a trade school in Richmond for young people to learn a skill and give it back to the community.
“My wife is a pastor, so I would probably build us a bigger church and just try to give people life,” Squire said.
Friday’s drawing is at 11 p.m.
If there is no winner, the next jackpot will be even larger, though it still has a ways to go to reach the all-time record of $1.537 billion given by Powerball in October 2018.
In July 1976, a crowd filled The Pass, a restaurant and music venue at 803 W. Broad St. in Richmond. The Pass opened in 1975 and was in business for about four years. In its short time, notable artists performed there, including John Mayall, Stanley Turrentine, Lydia Pense, the Atlanta Rhythm Section, Earl Scruggs, Nicolette Larsen and Robert Palmer.
In February 1989, an exerciser made her way around the new outdoor track at the YMCA fitness center on Franklin Street in downtown Richmond. “Eighteen laps to the mile,” a Y official said.
In June 1977, Virginia State Penitentiary conducted a 12-hour shakedown and uncovered an array of items hidden throughout the prison, including about 100 “sharpened instruments.” The facility was located along Spring Street in Richmond.
In January 1978, Bill Heindl, a co-founder of the Heindl-Evans Inc. construction firm, oversaw progress on building a footbridge in James River Park at Texas Avenue in Richmond.
In July 1980, Matthew J. Robinson Jr., president of Imperial Broom Co., stood in his shop off Jennings Road in Henrico County. He was the fourth generation to run the family operation, which started making brooms in 1900.
In June 1960, Harry L. Donovan (dark suit), his handcuffs covered by a jacket, was escorted from the U.S. Marshal’s Office in downtown Richmond, en route to a four-year term in federal prison in Atlanta. For decades, Richmond was the center of Donovan’s numbers operation; he pleaded guilty to multiple counts of failing to pay wagering taxes.
In July 1959, cars were parked along 17th Street in Richmond looking toward Main Street.
In November 1961, Gov.-elect Albertis S. Harrison Jr. sat with wife Lacey (right) and daughter Toni. In a profile about the rising first family of Virginia, the three shared that they enjoyed playing bridge together, and Toni said she liked playing golf with her father while quizzing him about political affairs.
In June 1981, Neville D. McNerney led his granddaughter Christi on a ride in Prince George County. The retired Army infantry officer raised, trained and showed mules and donkeys as a hobby. And while the agricultural need had declined, McNerney’s miniature animals were popular for recreational use such as riding and show-ring competitions.
In April 1973, the annual dredging of the James River channel in Richmond was underway. The previous year’s flooding had deposited a great amount of silt, so Atkerson Dredging Co. would be busy. The project, which usually took a week, was expected to require more than a month.
In December 1957, firefighters battled a blaze at L.R. Brown & Co., a furniture store on Hull Street in South Richmond. The warehouse blaze destroyed many pieces intended for Christmas gifts.
In October 1976, architect Robert Winthrop held a brick believed to be from the 1811 Richmond Theatre fire. Winthrop was working on the restoration of historic Monumental Church on East Broad Street, which was built on the theater site as a memorial to those who died in the fire. The restoration work uncovered burned bricks and traces of the original theater wall.
In September 1954, presidents of four upper classes at Collegiate School in Henrico County gathered at the entrance to discuss school matters. From left were senior Bernice Spathey, junior Jane Durham, sophomore Dorothy Ewing and freshman Terry Bunnell.
In April 1963, Laura Vietor was recognized for her longtime nursing work at Sheltering Arms Hospital in Richmond. She was awarded the Elizabeth D. Gibble Volunteer of the Year Award for her many years of service, which included full-time volunteer nursing even after retiring at age 65.
In August 1966, Boy Scouts from Troop 644, sponsored by the Henry Fire Department in Mechanicsville, began a 58-mile James River voyage from Richmond to Jamestown aboard homemade rafts. Eleven boys and four adult supervisors participated in the five-day journey, with only paddles and tide to propel them. The 50-mile trip badge the boys earned would move them one step closer to becoming first-class Scouts.
In April 1971, Newton Ancarrow paused during a trek through Richmond’s new James River Park to examine a blossoming wildflower. Ancarrow, a crusader for cleaning the river, had started studying and photographing wildflowers five years earlier, seeing them as a tool to tell the story of pollution’s threat to the James. Passion and hobby intersected, and he had made more than 35,000 color slides of local wildflowers.
This March 1959 image shows the Richmond skyline from the south bank of the James River.
In June 1952, motorcyclists raced in the 10-Mile National Motorcycle Championship at the Atlantic Rural Exposition grounds in Henrico County. More than 4,000 spectators saw Bobby Hill of Columbus, Ohio, the nation’s top racer, ride bike No. 1 to victory in the 20-lap championship race.
In September 1952, Mrs. John Garland Pollard (center), associate director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, discussed plans for the museum’s membership campaign with Junior League volunteers Mrs. Edward Epps (left) and Mrs. Richmond Gray.
This November 1955 image shows the iconic Hofheimer building at 2816 W. Broad St. in the Scott’s Addition area of Richmond. The building, with a distinctive Mediterranean-style roof and minaret, was built in 1928 by Herold R. Hofheimer to house his business, Hofheimer Rug Cleaning & Storage Co.
In August 1967, morning commuters driving along Monument Avenue near the Henrico County and Richmond border welcomed a break in the clouds and some sunshine after a week of continuous rain.
This July 1964 image shows the James River from an overlook along the Blue Ridge Parkway. At the time, Lynchburg engineer W. Martin Johnson, a proponent of river development who was president of the James River Basin Association, was urging exploration of how industries could benefit from the river’s watershed of roughly 10,000 square miles in the state.
In June 1972, a farm in Columbia, a James River town in Fluvanna County, was largely submerged after the remnants of Hurricane Agnes brought some of the worst flooding in decades to many parts of the state. In Richmond, the swollen James peaked at 36.5 feet.
In July 1987, the Arby’s restaurant at 2311 W. Broad St. in Richmond was preparing to move next door into a new, larger building (left). The old space was to be converted into a Dairy Queen that would be owned by the same family that owned the Arby’s. Together, the restaurants would employ about 50 people
In July 1947, “The Soldier,” as many people called the patient of Central State Hospital near Petersburg, sat outside a sentry box he had built on the grounds. The psychiatric hospital dates to 1869, when a former Confederate facility known as Howard’s Grove Hospital was designated as a mental health facility for African-Americans.
In August 1963, June Hudnall (left), head nurse of the Medical College of Virginia Hospital’s Clinical Research Center, connected an artificial kidney to a patient who was a transplant candidate. Dr. John Bower and Barbara Hale are at back. The research center focused on patients warranting intensive study, including those slated to undergo rare operations.
In July 1941, children took a homemade cart for a spin along North 19th Street in Richmond. They built the toy in the spirit of “Gasless Sundays,” a means of conserving resources in a national defense drive ahead of U.S. entry into World War II. The cart was fashioned from an orange crate, old baby carriage wheels and scrap lumber.
In October 1970, the Richmond Scenic James Council led canoe and walking tours for about 200 people to highlight the natural beauty of the river. Here, Tom Brooks (front) and son Tom Jr. (rear) handled the paddling while Mrs. John Demitri and children Johnny and Lisa enjoyed the view.
In September 1962, Frederic S. Bocock of the Historic Richmond Foundation and Mrs. Cornelius F. Florman stood in front of one of four new plaques honoring patrons of Church Hill renovations in Richmond. Florman was the granddaughter of Mrs. Richard S. Reynolds; the plaque pictured cited Reynolds’ role in restoring Hardgrove Cottage on North 24th Street.
In July 1959, DuPont scientist Meredith Miller checked experimental cellophane coatings at the plant in Chesterfield County. The factory was developed in the late 1920s to produce rayon and began making cellophane in 1930, a material that used a similar production process.
In July 1965, employees of M&B Headwear Co. Inc. picketed outside the Richmond factory, one of the country’s largest suppliers of military caps. The strike involved about 300 members of the United Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers International Union, which was seeking a roughly 15-cent-per-hour raise over two years for some workers. The union said the average hourly wage for the employees, most of whom were women, was $1.35.
A look at the 10 largest U.S. jackpots that have been won and the states where the winning tickets were sold:
1. $1.586 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016 (three tickets, from California, Florida, Tennessee)
2. $1.537 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018 (one ticket, from South Carolina)
3. $1.05 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 22, 2021 (one ticket, from Michigan)
4. $768.4 million, Powerball, March 27, 2019 (one ticket, from Wisconsin)
5. $758.7 million, Powerball, Aug. 23, 2017 (one ticket, from Massachusetts)
6. $731.1 million, Powerball, Jan. 20, 2021 (one ticket, from Maryland)
7. $699.8 million, Powerball, Oct. 4, 2021 (one ticket, from California)
8. $687.8 million, Powerball, Oct. 27, 2018 (two tickets, from Iowa and New York)
9. $656 million, Mega Millions, March 30, 2012 (three tickets, from Kansas, Illinois and Maryland)
10. $648 million, Mega Millions, Dec. 17, 2013 (two tickets, from California and Georgia)
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Barber Jimmy Squire dreams of building a trade school in Richmond for young people to learn a skill.
A customer walks past a Virginia Lottery booth on Thursday, July 21, 2022, at Davis Market in Richmond.
Virginia Mega Millions player Jimmy Squire, a barber from Richmond, holds up his lottery tickets on Thursday, July 21, 2022, at Davis Market in Richmond. The Mega Millions is currently at $660 million, the fifth highest it’s ever been.
ABOVE: Mega Millions player Jimmy Squire, a barber at Legacy Grooming Lounge, waited Thursday for the cashier at Davis Market in Richmond to give him his lottery tickets.
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