Samuel Bazemore: Powder Springs Resident and Winner of $2.5 Million

Powder Springs resident Samuel Bazemore was given a $2.5 million check Wednesday from the Georgia Lottery.

“I almost passed out,” Bazemore says in a Georgia Lottery press release of when he realized his Millionaire Jumbo Bucks scratch-off ticket was a winner.

He purchased the ticket on his way home from work at a Snack Barrel in Rincon, GA, which is in Effingham County. 

“I put my thumb over the amount and checked the ticket with the clerk,” he said. “When I removed my thumb, the whole store went wild.”

Bazemore, 51, was awarded his winnings Wednesday at the Snack Barrel after turning his ticket in last Friday. 

He and his wife, Lisa, have five children and three grandchildren. Three of their children and their nephew live with them.

For the past six months, the couple has lived in the Savannah area, where Samuel works as a computer support specialist for Maxim Crane Works.

They intend to use their winnings to pay for their children's education. 

And as for their home in Powder Springs: It's going on the market.

Bazemore was at work Wednesday afternoon, Lisa told Patch by phone, and he has no plans of retiring.

“He’s still working,” she said.

Lisa discussed when her husband called to tell her the good news: “He was real, real nervous at first. I didn’t know what was wrong.”

But the news that was to follow was a “God sent,” she said.

“We’re just shocked,” Lisa said.

One of the couple’s children recently got back to the country from a tour in Iraq, she said. Because he is training in California to be deployed to Korea, he doesn’t know about the winning ticket yet, she added.

Lisa said the couple intends to tell their son when he comes home to visit in early March.

“I’m just on Cloud 9,” she said.