Flash player is required to view weather conditions. Download

site web  

HAMILTON — Jenny Bain said the largest item she had ever won before this week was a department store bicycle during her youth.

That all changed around 3 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 24, when the Hamilton resident received news she scored the grand prize in the fifth annual St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway.

Bain, who began entering the contest several years ago, said she never dreamed she stood a chance of actually winning the grand prize.

"I couldn't believe it," she said. "St. Jude's is just a good cause. You don't think about winning ... but I'm glad we did!"

Still stunned by their good fortune, Bain and her family headed that afternoon to the Tuscany subdivision in Covington, Ky., two hours later to check out the two-story newly built Fischer Homes structure valued at $400,000, according to St. Jude's spokeswoman Sarah Leidheiser.

Bain said she thinks the 3,278-square-foot home is beautiful, especially its designer kitchen and master bedroom. In all, the house features four bedrooms, 2½ baths, a fireplace, library, walk-in closets in all bedrooms and 9-foot first-floor ceilings.

Technically, Bain's prize isn't entirely her own doing. She split the $100 contribution to St. Jude evenly with her mother and her three sisters. But because Bain's name appears first on the ticket, she was the one who got the call.

Bain and her husband, John, are reluctant to leave the area because she is a X-ray technician in Hamilton and he as a plumber.

"That would be quite a drive," she said. "We really don't know what we're going to do with it yet."

Ticket sales and other donations from the St. Jude Telethon raised more than $664,000 for research and treatment at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Leidheiser said.

Contact this reporter at (513) 755-5126

or eschwartzberg@coxohio.com.