US couple wins $294 million: Then what?

Nancy Truman, 12up.com, 8/4/22; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

Every American dreams about winning the lottery. Not everyone is lucky enough to hold the one ticket that takes home the whole pot, with the odds being 1 in 300 billion. But Mark and Cindy Hill, 52 and 51, were lucky people holding that ticket.

When they won the lottery, they defied the odds again by spending their money in a way no one would ever expect. 

• What did they do, build Buddhist temples, fill libraries with sacred texts, support scholars to probe and monastics to practice those sacred teachings?

Smallest of Towns

Mark and Cindy Hill live in Podunk, America (Dearborn, Missouri). West of Kansas City by about 30 miles, the town is so small it only has about 200 residents. That truly makes it a small town, very country and very rural, in America.

Mark and Cindy have three grown sons, between the ages of 28 and 30, who no longer live with them, and they also adopted a six-year-old girl from China.

• Did they give each child $10 million to set them up for life, with $11 million for the adopted Chinese daughter so she could set up a modest Buddhist temple, fill its one library with some books, and support two practitioners who resource a scholar to translate and interpret the texts?

Humble Hills

The Hills had always lived in Dearborn, with a humble lifestyle that didn’t require much. They go to church, pay their dues and, occasionally, buy a lottery ticket [ a sinful act of gambling, according to the church, but who listens to the church on such matters?]

Most residents in Dearborn are living on about $22,000 a year, but the Hills were making less than that because Cindy had been laid off from her office manager job in 2010, and Mark was working as a mechanic in a factory. While his work was important and worthwhile, he didn’t bring home enough to make up for Cindy’s lost job.

Pick up the Slack

One source of income for American families is less than ideal in this day and age, and Cindy was always on the job hunt -- but it was hard since their daughter, Jade, had been recently adopted and was adjusting to her new life. They didn’t want to leave her alone; however, they wanted to do the best to provide for her financially.

So Cindy took a part-time job as a waitress for the first few years of Jade’s adjustment, which meant she was working at the age of 40-something at a job she hadn’t done since she was a teenager! That’s a big downgrade from office manager, but she did it with a smile and out of love for her daughter. 

It Started Out Like Any Other Day...

In November of 2012, after Jade had been with the family for two years, Cindy was on her way home from errands when she stopped at a Trex Mart. [Think Piggly Wigglys]. She needed to get some groceries and was mostly thinking about how she would make ends meet that week.

She saw that the lottery had a pot that had grown to be an astonishing amount of money so, not thinking about church, she bought five tickets to try her luck. Of course, the odds of winning the lottery are very slim, so she didn’t think this would help them put food on the table or anything more anywhere else. 

Historic Jackpot

The jackpot for the lottery was the largest in the history of the USA at the time and, of course, the biggest ever in Missouri. It stood at a whopping $587.5 million, more than half a billion. That’s a lot more zeros than any resident of Dearborn had ever seen. 

• CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - JANUARY 22: A customer purchases a Mega Millions lottery ticket at a 7-Eleven store in the Loop on January 22, 2021, in Chicago, Illinois. The jackpot in the drawing has climbed to $970 million, the third highest in the game (Scott Olson/GettyImages).

The odds are really against lottery winners, and with a pot that big the number of tickets being bought was high, so the chances of a successful ticket buy were exactly the same (because the odds in state lotteries are not dependent on the number of tickets sold though the payout is).

Back of Her Mind...

Cindy didn’t put too much thought into the tickets she bought. She spent a total of ten dollars on the tickets and didn’t even bother trying her "lucky numbers." Instead, she let the machine pick the tickets for her, which is not usually the strategy employed by avid lottery gamblers. 

Cindy didn’t even bother memorizing her numbers! She just put the tickets in her car and forgot about them overnight, her mind occupied with more important things, like dinner and her children. 

A Night of Waiting

The night before the winning lottery numbers were announced, Cindy had very little hope. She told her daughter Jade that they were very unlikely to win, as it never happens. The chances of someone actually holding the winning numbers are very slim! 

However, the next day, after she had dropped Jade off at school, she went to the convenience store again. She checked the screen where the winning numbers of the Power Ball Lottery were displayed against her tickets, and to her surprise...

Could It Be?

The numbers seemed to line up. Cindy couldn’t believe it at first. She was sure she must be reading something wrong. She called her husband, Mark, and said that she thought she might be having a heart attack. She really couldn’t believe it. “I think we just won the lottery!” she cried. 

Cindy called her mother-in-law Shirley as well, and they all looked at one ticket over and over again, triple checking the numbers. But they were all there alright: 5, 23, 16, 22, and the last one, 29. They were holding the biggest winning lottery ticket in the history of the country right there in their hands. 

Half of Everything

These numbers changed their lives once and for all. They had won half of the total lottery money, which meant they got to take home a big check worth almost 300 million dollars: $293,750,000 to be exact.

The media soon started calling the family “The Hillionaires,” a clever twist on their name. The Hill family, meanwhile, could barely believe that all their money troubles had been solved in a moment. What would they do with all of their winnings? 

• Establish the support of a spiritual community or sangha to promote good on earth, the existence of arhats, and establish a viable path to the end of all suffering for the rural people of this country?

Life of Luxury?

Of course, the money meant that Mark no longer needed to labor in the factory, and Cindy didn’t have to keep working part-time as a waitress. They would be able to afford sending Jade to college, and the Hills' retirement fund had just ballooned. But what else was there to do? 

MUGLA, TURKIYE - FEBRUARY 23: A view of Cayman Islands-flagged luxury yacht (Anadolu Agency/GettyImages)

Did they want to spend it on expensive homes, diamond bracelets, vacations to exotic locales? Ideas were endless, if meaningless, and of course all their friends and family wanted to chime in and let them know what they thought they should buy. 

Old Habits 

Months went by. Mark had quit his job. However, he still met his friends at the coffee shop for a bite and a catch up on their regularly scheduled day. He had talked about buying his dream car, a Chevy Camaro, but he was still driving his old pick-up truck that was pushing it in years, and the family hadn't moved out of Dearborn yet. 

His friends were not alone in wondering, Where had all that money gone? Mark wasn’t wearing flashy clothes, Jade wasn't in Harvard, the sons weren't racing around in Corvettes, and his wife wasn’t parading about in fancy jewelry, so what had they spent it on? 

Clean up Camden

The first thing the Hills did was look to their roots. Mark donated $50,000 to his sh*tty hometown of Camden Point, Missouri. He wanted the money to go toward a sewage treatment plant. 

This seemed like a very strange request, but it was a life-changing one for the people of Camden Point. Camden Point had to use individual septic tanks for sewage because they were not a very well-funded town. But now the residents wouldn’t have to have septic tanks on their properties, and the sewage would be out of sight. 

Giving Back

Many may say that this is an odd thing to spend your winnings on, but the Hillionaires had made a promise to themselves and to their friends: They would use the money they had been blessed with to give back to their community. 

Instead of spending all that money on themselves, they were going to use it to better the world. The Mayor of Camden Point Kevin Boydston said the money could not have gone to a kinder couple. 

Sharing the Love

Mark posted about the family’s good fortune on Facebook, but surprisingly they did not get too many requests from people looking for easy handouts. Mostly their friends and family were happy for their possessions. 

• What karma results in others being happy for us rather than jealous, envious, and conniving against us?

Mark and Cindy wanted to spread love and considered adopting another child. They wanted to give most of the money away, thinking that it was all a gift from God, and they were there to make sure the money went to the right things. 

A Good Son

The Hills' son, Jason, was quoted saying that “I hope we all stay very grounded, stay humble, and don’t forget who we are” after his parents won the lottery. It was very important to him that the family didn’t forget their roots. 

Mark’s mother, Shirley, who was there when they realized they had won the money, who reminded her son that she always liked Cindy, believed in her family. She thought that they would stay grounded as it was in their nature to be humble, and she was proud of them and all they would go on to do. 

Fighting Fires

The Hills donated three million dollars to the fire department of Dearborn. The money went to help the department build a whole new station in neighboring Camden Point, allowing room for them to get a new ambulance as well. 

Mark told KMBC that he was “proud to be a part” of a “town of 500 people [that has] an ambulance service that’s manned 24/7.” His parents were saved twice by firefighters in their lifetime, and Mark was happy to be able to pay that forward. 

Surpassing Expectations

Dearborn’s Volunteer Fire Department Chief Walt Stubbs told The HuffPost that the new station would have been impossible without the Hill's donation. If they had to use tax money, it would have taken them 25 years to build the same station!

The Hills helped them build one that was four times bigger than the old station and would help the firefighters and ambulance have easier access to the main roads and highways and therefore easier access to dangerous areas. Now help would no longer be half an hour away. 

High School Sweethearts Return Home

The Hills wanted to help their old high school as well. They had met at North Platte High School and wanted to make sure that the place that had been so important to their relationship remained important to many other future sweethearts. They created a scholarship for Dearborn’s students. 

With the help of the Hill family, North Platte High School was able to provide aid for many Dearborn students, including college help and lunch money. The Hills also set aside college funds for their nieces and nephews along with their daughter. They helped send many students to university, which is a real accomplishment in a town that small. 

Play (Power) Ball!

The Hills also gave the school district enough money to build a new baseball field. The district was happy to have new funds to build a field farther from traffic so students could play safely and with joy. 

Family Time

Of course, the Hills also wanted to spend some money on themselves. Luckily, they had money to spare! It was the first time in their lives that they had ever possessed excess money to spend. 

The Hills didn’t buy Camaros or clothing, pools or Porsches, but they did take the opportunity to do a bit of traveling. This was something they didn't have the chance to do before, so it was a treat to take Jade to a beachside town and stay in a fancy hotel with an indoor toilet.

Travel Bug Bites

Indeed, they had been dreaming of traveling for a long, long time. Although they thought that they had been plenty blessed before in their day-to-day lives in Dearborn, they were really excited that they would get to see the world. 

The Hills wanted to go to China with their daughter and explore her roots and to Ireland, as they were both of Irish descent and they wanted to explore where they themselves came from. Beyond that, they would follow the wind and their own random wants and see what they could see. 

No One Left Behind

The location of the winning ticket was also awarded money. The Hills’ win meant that the Trex Mart gas station obtained $50,000, enough to buy a sewage system for their own hometown of Mt. Pilot or somewhere in the Boondocks. The owner of the store, Lowell Hartell, said that the money would go to Christmas bonuses for the hardworking employees, yet another gift the Hills gave to the community! 

In addition, many people flocked to that lucky Trex Mart to buy lottery tickets. In fact, they saw almost $30,000 in ticket sales, $27,000 to be exact. An employee expressed her wonder that they were the ones to sell the winning ticket and all the fame that followed. 

Happy Hills

The people who knew the Hills best weren’t at all surprised to see them doing such good with their winnings. While money can change people, good people won’t be changed easily. Good people are more willing to help others. And the Hills, according to their friends, are really good people. 

The mayor said all along that the winnings couldn’t have gone to a better couple, and this was proven by how much the Hills' donations changed their community for the better. It put the towns on the map for tourists and also allowed them to revitalize their economies. 

Too Much Attention 

Of course, lottery winners often receive a lot of bad attention as well. Rumors were swirling around the small town about who the winners were. Mark posted on Facebook about the family's good fortune. Then he got thousands and thousands of friend requests! 

People were asking for money and were trying to figure out how exactly the Hills would spend their cash. There were even some people who tried to sneak onto the Hills property and peer through their windows to see how they were living their lives! 

Good Luck Is Bad?

There are a lot of bad things that can happen to lottery winners after they hit it big. In fact, there is a researcher who studies just that, the aftereffects of winning the lottery. According to him, the Hills are an exception among the exceptions. Most winners squander their money and certainly most do not give this much to charity. 

About 70% of lottery winners lose all their money within a few years. There are examples of people who were even millionaires before winning the lottery, who go bankrupt after winning even more money! It seems counterintuitive but having that much money can go to one's head. Whodathunkit? Ultimately, less is more. 

Can Money Buy Happiness?

There are other winners who will end up living happier lives after winning large sums of money. Indeed, the Hills are likely to live a life of long-term satisfaction for at least ten years after winning, especially if they don’t squander it. If they spend it wisely and don’t get caught up in a lavish lifestyle, they can remain wealthy for even more than a decade after their original win.

The Hill Legacy 

What is certain is that winners who donate money will receive a lot of love from the community in return. The new firehouse was dedicated by the Camden Point Fire Department as the "Mark and Cindy Hill Building."

Inside the new building, there is even a corner dedicated to the Hills for people to come and learn about the difference their generosity had made in the town. The Hills did not ask for this recognition, and although they were grateful, they hadn’t been generous for a reward.

Sad News

However, money cannot buy immortality [though it can extend health and longevity if used to learn about and begin to consume health food, avoiding processed foods and restaurant meals], and that is never as clear as to when a family is hit with an unexpected loss. Seven years after the lottery win, in 2019, Mark Hill passed away. He was only 59 years old [with millions in the bank not yet spent for good, therefore, neither being useful as currency nor as merit of good deeds that keep on bearing their results in apparent disproportion to the initial deed].

Mark Hill was survived by his wife, daughter, three sons, and six grandkids. The Hill family had a small private service for him in the local cemetery, and his legacy is preserved forever in the community as a kind and generous man. The family asked for donations to the fire department instead of the traditional bouquets of flowers. Even in his death, Mark remained thoughtful and giving. 

A Lasting Impact

Even though Mark Hill left this world, his generous spirit remains with his wife and his family. He worked hard his whole life, and he did not stop dedicating himself to the community even after he no longer had to work. The hard work and selflessness that Mark and his wife Cindy displayed put their small town of Dearborn on the map of history and reminded the entire nation what community and selflessness are all about.

The Camden Point Fire Department has said that they will never forget the Hill family. Their legacy will live on within the brick walls of the firehouse. The board president, Steve Flock, says “it’s just an amazing family” and it is very true. The Hills defied the odds by winning the lottery, and then again by being so kind and generous with their winnings and remaining humble and true to their roots as well as who they are. They are truly a couple to be admired!