Duane Hicks
Harriette Wagner’s Big Mac extra value meal last month came with an unexpected side order when she won $25,000 in the 2010 Monopoly Game at a local McDonald’s restaurant.
Fort Frances McDonald’s owner John Myers presented the local woman with her cheque yesterday, along with a bouquet of flowers, box of chocolates, and a new Monopoly board game.
Wagner, a mother of four with a fifth child due in seven-eight weeks, said she and her husband, Brad, ordered meals at the McDonald’s at Wal-Mart in early October.
They both had opened their Monopoly game pieces, and when she saw that she’d won $25,000, she couldn’t believe it.
“I asked my husband to go up and ask the manager if this was true. He did, and the manager said it was,” the 27-year-old recalled.
“I was surprised, really,” she later added.
When asked how she would use the winnings, Wagner replied with a laugh, “Christmas shopping!”
“There’s a lot of things that we want to do,” she added on a more serious note.
“We’re having a number five [child] and this will help with that.”
“We’ll take a bit of a holiday,” said her husband.
“We have a busy household,” smiled Wagner.
“We can definitely use it,” her husband remarked.
In an interesting coincidence, Brad Wagner said their children—Hunter, Jonny, Kenny, and Krystal—needed a new Monopoly game.
“My kids lost their Monopoly board game pieces, and now she has a Monopoly board. . . .
“We were going to have to buy a new one, and now we don’t,” he chuckled.
While the McDonald’s Monopoly Game has been running for years, Myers said he’s never seen a local customer win a prize as large as $25,000.
