A good week got even better for a Tallapoosa man who won the lottery just days after he started a new job.
Joshua Holdbrooks had just finished his fourth day of work as a mechanical contractor last week when he stopped at a Carrollton gas station for a soda. What he wasn’t expecting was to walk out $377,777 richer.
“I almost passed out,” Holdbrooks said in a Georgia Lottery news release Monday. “I was scratching as I walked out of the store. I saw the matching No. 21.”
The first thing Holdbrooks did when he realized he won the lottery was call his father.
“We met up between Carrollton and Rome, and we bear hugged in the grass,” he said. “It was the best day in a long time, and I’m still trying to soak it all in.”
Holdbrooks, 34, won the top prize by playing the instant game Lady Luck 7, and he claimed his money Friday at the lottery’s Atlanta headquarters.
The Holdbrooks family has a history with the lottery. According to the news release, Joshua’s wife, Meagan, graduated from West Georgia Technical College in LaGrange with the HOPE Scholarship and the couple’s 5-year-old son participated in Georgia’s Pre-K Program — both of which are funded by the Georgia Lottery.
Joshua Holdbrooks said he plans on using the money he won to pay off bills and start a college fund for his two sons, ages 5 and 1.
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