Special to the Journal

            A Putney resident has collected a $250,000 Georgia Lottery prize and an Albany resident– a former owner of WFXL-TV – claimed a separate $10,000 prize.

Carol Harrell, 42, of Putney matched the first five winning numbers in Friday’s Mega Millions drawing and won the game’s quarter-million-dollar second prize. Winning numbers from the drawing were: 20-23-41-49-53 and the Mega Ball was 31.

Harrell purchased her Quik Pik ticket at Family Pantry, 4324 Radium Springs Road, Albany. With no jackpot winners in Friday’s drawing, Tuesday’s Mega Millions jackpot was $24 million.

Meanwhile, a retired Albany broadcaster is reporting a Georgia Lottery win. Douglas Oliver, 72, won $10,000 in last week’s Maximum Green Extra Chance drawing.

“I was really surprised,” said Oliver, who worked at WALB-TV for more than 30 years and owned WFXL-TV.

Oliver claimed the prize Friday afternoon at the Lottery’s Tifton office.

He said plans to put the winnings in a college fund for his grandsons, 12 and 10.

“Their dad will really appreciate it,” he quipped.

Maximum Green is an instant game with $5 million top prizes. Players can enter non-winning tickets in the monthly Maximum Green Extra Chance drawings for a chance to win one of 10 monthly prizes of $10,000.

Since its first year, the Georgia Lottery Corp. has returned more than $12.5 billion to the state of Georgia for education. All Georgia Lottery profits go to pay for specific educational programs, including Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship Program and Georgia’s Pre-K Program. More than 1.3 million students have received HOPE, and more than 1.1 million 4-year-olds have attended the statewide, voluntary prekindergarten program.