High school teacher receives lottery ticket for Christmas — and wins. ‘Can’t be real’

A high school teacher didn’t know it at the time, but she received a very valuable Christmas gift last year — a winning Virginia Lottery ticket.

Kayten Stroop later checked the numbers in Virginia’s New Year’s Millionaire Raffle and learned she had won a second-tier prize of $100,000, the Virginia Lottery said Jan. 22.

The high school teacher from Shenandoah County received the ticket as a present from her boyfriend’s mom, who bought the lucky ticket at a Food Lion grocery store.

But when she saw the winning numbers announced New Year’s Day, she was in disbelief.

“I don’t know what happened here, but it can’t be real,” she told lottery officials.

She didn’t win one of the top prizes of $1 million, but claimed one of seven prizes of $100,000, according to the Virginia Lottery.

Stroop is from the small town of Woodstock in northwest Virginia, about a 100-mile drive west from Washington, D.C.