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POSTED: Wednesday, May. 20, 2009

Ferndale man wins $1.4 million with Lotto ticket

FERNDALE - With construction, traffic and bad drivers, the trip to Everett can be nerve-wracking.

When that's the drive you have to take to turn in a $1.4 million lottery ticket, it becomes downright terrifying. Or at least it was for Ferndale's Mark Tapley, when he made the drive to the Everett Lotto office Friday, May 15.

"I was the most nervous person on the planet driving that ticket to Everett," he said, worried that a crash would destroy him and his winning ticket. "I wouldn't go over the speed limit or drive near big trucks."

Tapley made it to the Lotto office, his winning Rich for Life ticket in hand. The ticket's top prize is $2,000 a week for life, but he opted to take a lump sum of $1.4 million.

Tapley, an assistant manager at Wal-Mart, bought the ticket May 10 at the Ferndale Mini Market on Main Street, where his wife, Gina, works as manager. When he scratched off the ticket in the parking lot, it seemed too good to be true.

"At first, (I was in) complete disbelief. I thought I was looking at it incorrectly. I looked at it and looked at it again, looked at the back and the front," Tapley said. "When I walked into the Lotto office and I showed them the ticket, that's when it really started to hit that this is really going to happen."

After buying the ticket, Tapley, 53, had to drive to Shelton, where he has spent the past 10 weeks assisting in a Wal-Mart remodel. He didn't tell his wife about the ticket until he was back in Ferndale on Wednesday, May 13.

"That's not the kind of thing you say over the phone," he said. "You've got to be there in person."

This is the Ferndale Mini Market's second big-ticket win in three years. In September 2006, Dan Ingram of Laurel won $1 million on a Washington Millionaire ticket.

The store was named Washington's 2007 Lottery Retailer of the Year.

Tapley said he and his wife plan to keep their jobs and spend their winnings responsibly, for the most part. His big splurge was going down to Diehl Ford to buy a new F-150 truck, and he's making plans for a family vacation in Hawaii.

Next year, they will pay off their Ferndale home and put away money for their 13-year-old twin girls to go to college. They also have four grown children.

Tapley is thankful for the ticket and the new sense of security and comfort it provides. But he's even more thankful to his wife, who advised him to buy the $10 Rich for Life ticket while he was picking things up at the market before his trip to Shelton.

"I will always trust her judgment," he said. "I'm not sure what makes me luckier, being married to her or the ticket. I'll go with being married to her. (That was) my best luck."