Vineyard tour bus driver wins $10M in lottery

By Globe Staff

A tour bus driver who lives on Martha's Vineyard won $10 million in the state lottery. She says she'll be doing some touring herself now.

Sandra I. Grant, 58, of Edgartown said she's going to quit her job and go on some cruises. It’s a big change for the woman who used to depend on the tips from the bus passengers, many of whom had come off cruise ships themselves.

Grant said her good fortune hadn't quite sunk in yet – and she hadn't made any big plans.

"I don't think I really realize how much I've really won," she said. "Every day there's different thoughts."

Grant won the money playing the new Billion Dollar Blockbuster scratch ticket game.

She will receive 20 annual payments of $500,000, before taxes.

Grant said she was surprised by the big chunk taken out of her first payment by taxes, but it would have still taken her five or six years to make that much money.

“She is a lovely woman and we wish her all the best,” Mark Cavanagh, the lottery executive director, said in a statement posted on the lottery's website.

Grant said she would also pay off bills, visit friends in South Carolina, and visit her brother in Florida.

“I’m not going to go crazy,” she said.

• Comment
• Permalink
• Email