Not sure whether he was dreaming or not, the Rev. Solomon Jackson Jr. was careful to confirm each number — 14, 24, 31, 43, 51, and, finally, 27 — with a lawyer friend after purchasing a Powerball lottery ticket at a South Carolina gas station in August.
Jackson’s $2 investment reaped $260 million worth of blessings for the retired state employee, who pastors the New Shiloh Baptist Church in Columbia, S.C.
Hoping to spread the joy, Jackson donated $10 million of his “good fortune” — as he called it — to his alma mater, Morris College, a historically Black college in Sumter, S.C. It is the largest one-time individual donation in the school’s history, officials said.
“When I was aspiring to be a minister, I studied here at Morris College,” Jackson said, who was a student in the 1970s in the School of Religion. “The experience helped mold me. I thank God for the training I received here.”
