CLIVE, Iowa — Talk about a great weekend! A Dubuque County man got engaged on a Friday night, then won nearly $400,000 on a lottery ticket the very next morning.
"I'm ready for the next parts of life, I guess," laughed Nick Miller of Bernard as he claimed his winnings at Iowa Lottery headquarters.
On June 22, Miller popped the question to now-fiancée Lauren Timmerman. The next morning he stopped at Casey's on 717 First Ave. E. in Cascade, IA, for a coffee and a slice of breakfast pizza before leaving to work cattle with his brother.
While in the store, Miller says he noticed the jackpot in the Super 7s Progressive InstaPlay game had jumped to nearly $400,000. After buying a ticket, he went out to his truck and started matching the winning numbers.
"I had one and then two and then I saw the third one, so I had to do a double-take and check them again," Miller said. "Eventually, I checked them on my mobile app, and sure enough, it was the winner."
For more than two months, the big prize had ballooned to nearly $390,191. The last winner had been on April 4 from a ticket purchased in Marion. With this win, Miller caps off a five-day winning streak throughout Iowa that also saw a $1 million Mega Millions ticket purchased in Davenport.
Miller farms with his family and works at Rail-Way Inc. in Cascade.
While he told the Iowa Lottery he was 'bursting with the news' after winning, he kept things quiet while he and his fiancée left for a week-long family vacation in Florida.
He says the lottery win is a good way to start an engagement.
"There is the wedding and a house to start doing some work on," Miller said. "It will definitely go a long way towards both of those."
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