RUMFORD – Instant-win scratch ticket sales have dramatically spiked at Mountain Valley Variety since news broke Wednesday that a Mexico man had won $250,000 on a $10 ticket at the Rumford store earlier.

Five days after the first hit, on Saturday, a Rumford woman won the same amount on a $20 Extravaganza ticket bought at the Mexico FoodTrend beside routes 2 and 17, less than a mile from the Rumford store.

“That’s really unreal,” Mountain Valley Variety owner Rick Breau said Wednesday afternoon of the luck of Dwight Murphy at his store and that of Janette Chartier at the Mexico store. “It must be a new odd for the state, I would think. It’s pretty exciting, and makes you want to buy a ticket.”

And that’s what customers at Breau’s store at Lincoln Avenue and Hancock Street have been doing since Rumford Falls Time’s managing editor Bruce Farrin’s story broke Wednesday about the two winners.

“Ticket sales have been incredible. The word is out,” Breau said without naming numbers.

Neither Murphy nor Chartier could be contacted Wednesday, nor could a state lottery commission employee in Augusta. Both Murphy and Chartier each received $175,000 after taxes, the Times reported.

Chartier, a computer operator in Rumford Hospital’s payroll department, told the Times that after buying the ticket, she returned to her car, scratched the card and thought she’d won $25. She went back inside for the money and the clerk ran the ticket through the validating machine. When the clerk told her she’d have to go to state lottery headquarters in August, she said realized she’d won much more, the Times article stated.

Since then, Chartier said she hasn’t slept much, but planned to tell her employer she would retire at the age of 62.

Like Chartier, Breau said Murphy regularly bought scratch lottery tickets, though of lesser amounts.

But something different happened when Murphy stopped by the store between 6 and 7 a.m. on Feb. 26.

“There was a guy in front of Dwight who said he just bought three of (the Hold ’em Poker tickets) and lost three in a row. That’s what made Dwight take it. He told me he thought he’d try it,” Breau said.

Unlike Chartier, however, Murphy drove off and didn’t scratch the ticket until he was driving through town.

“That’s when he said, ‘Oh my God!’ and he never told his wife. He just went to Augusta right away, got his check and came back,” Breau said.

Med-Care Director Dean Milligan said early Wednesday night that Murphy did break the news to his wife, and also to Med-Care Assistant Director Chris Moretto.

“He’s a pleasant, happy-go-lucky guy,” Milligan said of Murphy, who served more than 20 years with the Mexico Fire Department before getting done, then working for more than a year as a Med-Care ambulance driver.

Milligan, who wasn’t there, said Moretto told him that Murphy walked into the office looking like something had happened. Moretto thought it was something bad. He then asked what was wrong and Murphy replied that something good had just happened to him.

“Chris said, ‘What? Did you win the lottery?’ and Dwight said, ‘Yes, I did,'” Milligan said.

The day after he won, Breau said Murphy stopped by Mountain Valley Variety and told store manager Sue Clark the good news. That’s when Clark took Breau into a back room and told him, Breau said.

“She wouldn’t tell me up front in front of Dwight. Oh my God, she was pretty excited. We’ve only been here six or seven months, so, it’s pretty neat. We’ve never had a customer hit a big one like that, here, or at my other store in Wilton,” he said of Rick’s Market.

For selling a large cash-prize winning ticket, Breau said the store will receive 1 percent of $250,000, minus taxes. He’s putting the money back into the store by buying a new pizza oven.

“I’m glad the local guys get a chance. I wish I would have won it, but it’s just the luck of the draw,” he said.