Kevin Hayek, from Kansas almost lost his $50,000 lottery ticket before finally managing to locate it in the trash can! Hayek, plays Powerball very regularly but admits he often doesn’t check his tickets, last Wednesday he stopped off at a convenience store whilst getting his daily coffee. He stopped off at Kwik Shop 789, which is located at 746 NE Wabash Avenue in Topeka and finally felt the urge to check his tickets from the drawing on October 18^th, when scanning the ticket using the machine, he suddenly saw a very long claim form coming out which was handed to him by the clerk. Hayek went off to work as usual, and it wasn’t until he started reading through the form with a co-worker he realized he was missing the item he needed to claim his prize: the winning ticket itself! “When I realized I didn’t have the ticket, I hopped back into the truck and went back to the store. The clerk had accidently thrown it away with the non-winning ticket,” he exclaimed. Fortunately, he was able to get it back in time and upon having a look online, Hayek found out that he had matched up four of the first five Powerball numbers and the Powerball number which gave him a total of a $50,000 lottery prize. Working in maintenance, plumbing and heating for over 30 years within the Topeka School District, the win came as a huge shock to him as he’s never won more than a $2 or $4 prize, so this sure is significant! “It’s finally starting to sink in” he says. Now, he plans to spend his money on paying off a few loans as well as giving his motorbike a “facelift” as he calls it.