Charles Warner|Daily Times The South Carolina Education Lottery's prize wheel promotion was the Kangaroo Express store in Jonesville on Friday. The lottery officials overseeing the promotion included Julie Huffman, beneficiary communications coordinator (left), Lauren Leviner, sales promotion manager (center), and Julie Adams, sales promotion coordinator for the Upstate.

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Charles Warner|Daily Times Roy Moss prepares to take one of two spins on the South Carolina Education Lottery's prize wheel as Julie Adams, lottery sales promotion coordinator for the Upstate, looks on. Moss won a tote bag and sunglasses in his two spins of the wheel. A person gets one spin of the wheel for every $10 worth of lottery tickets they purchase.

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Charles Warner|Daily Times Tonya Lauter watches to see what prize she will win one of the two spins she made Friday on the South Carolina Education Lottery's prize wheel. Lauter won a blanket and a cup. A person gets one spin of the wheel for every $10 worth of lottery tickets they purchase.

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JONESVILLE — An official with the S.C. Education Lottery said she was pleased with the turnout for the lottery’s prize wheel promotion at a Jonesville convenience store on Friday.

The prize wheel promotion gave the store’s customers a chance to spin the wheel to win prizes for every $10 worth of lottery tickets they bought. Prizes included T-shirts, hats, tumblers, blankets, totes and koozies.

Lottery officials brought the promotion to the Kangaroo Express store at 400 S. Main St. on Friday at the request of store manager Reba Sumner. It was the first time the store had hosted the promotion.

Julie Huffman, beneficiary communications coordinator for the lottery, was one of the lottery officials overseeing the promotion. Huffman described the store as “a good spot,” and its patrons as “very nice.” She said she was pleased with the number of people who took advantage of the promotion to win prizes.

“It went really well,” Huffman said. “We had over 40 spins of the wheel, which is a good turnout for a nice little town. Everybody seemed to have a good time spinning the wheel.

“The employees were a great help,” she said. “I think they enjoyed watching the people spin the wheel.”

Sumner described the promotion as “great,” but added that she told the area lottery representative who serves the store that she would have liked a larger turnout. However, Sumner said the area representative told her that in his experience the turnout for Friday’s promotion was a good one.

The lottery, which will celebrate its 11th anniversary on Monday, was founded in 2002 for the purpose of generating supplemental funding for education. Since then, the S.C. General Assembly has allocated $3.1 billion in the lottery’s net proceeds to support education and other programs including:

• $2.3 billion for higher education programs which have provided more than one million scholarships to South Carolina students.

• $687 million for K-12

• $84 million for community education programs including funding for county libraries as well as the Allied Health Care Initiative, and gambling addiction services.

Union County has received more than $17.6 million in lottery funds since 2002 including 9,781 scholarships totaling $12,880,027; $4,519,493 in K-12 funding; and $246,461 for the Union County Carnegie Library.

In 2012, four Union County residents won a total of $310,000 playing the various games of the S.C. Education Lottery. Three of the winning tickets were bought in Union County while the fourth was bought in Spartanburg.

Editor Charles Warner can be reached at 864-427-1234, ext. 14, or by email at cwarner@heartlandpublications.com.