Friday, Feb. 19, was her lucky day.

But, Madge Toland, of Winnebago, did not find that out until two days later, on Sunday, Feb. 21.

That is when she took her Gopher 5 Lottery ticket for the Feb. 19 drawing to work with her at Shell Mart in Blue Earth.

“I never check the numbers until I am at work,” she says. “I never check them at home.”

She says the machine reported she had a winning ticket, but not how much.

“It just said I couldn’t go to the regional lottery office in Mankato, I had to go to the main one in Roseville,” she recalls. “That meant it was (a jackpot) over $30,000 and for those you go to the main office.”

It was then she and another clerk checked her numbers 11, 12, 13, 18, 30 and all five matched.

“I was in shock and called Bob (her husband, Bob Toland, former Winnebago police chief),” she says. “He asked how much I had won, and I said ‘I think it is the big jackpot, the $500,000.”

She was wrong about that. It was actually $509,412.

The Tolands plan on doing a few fix ups on the house, pay off the mortgage, treat the grandkids, and put the rest into savings.

Does Toland plan to continue to work?

“Heavens yes,” she says. “This is just quite a blessing, and really takes the pressure off (financially).”

Toland says she has played the Gopher 5 state lottery since it started, but she doesn’t play the big Powerball or do any scratch off tickets. She didn’t think it was possible to win on them. The odds were not that good she adds.

“I bought a Gopher 5 ticket quite often, not regularly, not all the time, but a lot,” she says. “You know you hope you will win, but you don’t really think you will.”

But, this time she did.

“I really feel blessed,” she says.