The lottery has drawn the attention of crowds for as long as we can remember. There are those who spend all their money on tickets, and there are others who could not care less. However, the most recent Powerball has drawn in all sorts of people. From celebrities and politicians to the ordinary farmer, everyone in the United States has been glued to their TV screen at each number drawing. Everyone is hoping to win the historic 1.6 billion dollar grand prize. The teachers of Ipswich High School are among the millions of people hoping to win. Seventy teachers pooled their money together to amass 250 lottery tickets. Unfortunately, their hopes and dreams were shattered on January 13th, 2016 when the numbers were pulled. As you may already know the numbers pulled did not match up with any of the 250 lottery tickets. These teachers were sucked into the lottery along with millions of Americans.

The odds of winning any lottery are very slim. Despite this millions of people buy tickets every year. The appeal of the lottery is the chance to get rich quick. This attracts many people, and as the prize gets bigger the amount of people who enter increases. Therefore the longer the lottery lasts, the larger the prize becomes. This is how the most recent Powerball grew to such an outrageous size. The most recent lottery started on November 6th, 2015. The prize grew as weeks passed and no winner was chosen. After nineteen drawings the Powerball finally reached its historic grand prize of 1.6 billion dollars. It is not hard to see why so many people entered this lottery. The huge prize may have clouded over how slim the odds really were.  Although the chances were a 292 million to one,  Ipswich High teachers still pooled their hopes, dreams, and money to try for the prize.

The Powerball turned into an amusing game for faculty members at Ipswich High School. The wonderful English teacher Demi McShane was the brains behind this operation. Originally there were only about 32 faculty members.  By the last drawing there were 70 teachers involved. The process began by delivering five dollars to Mrs. McShane. She would then go out and buy the lottery tickets. Mrs. Colick from the front office would then photocopy all the tickets to make sure, as Mrs. McShane said, “so that there is no question about honesty.” Naturally you would think that all these teachers would be a very honest bunch, but Mrs. McShane pointed out a few shady characters. “Mrs. Panciera  and Mrs. Smith are not very trustworthy,” she said. “I would expect Mrs. Panciera to take all the money and write poetry all day.” IHS students also thought certain teachers would take all the money for themselves. Senior Matt Gilligan said, “Mr. Krieger would definitely take all the money. I can’t see him sharing.”

Unfortunately, our beloved teachers did not win Powerball. However, many people are asking the question: what if they did win? Most students say that they would expect the teachers to not show up to school the next day. In fact, most students said that the mastermind herself,  Mrs. McShane, would not show up the next day. When presented with this information McShane was shocked. She claims she would come to school and remain at her job because she loves what she does. Despite her comments students were still skeptical. If they had won the money,  History teacher Scott Ames calculated that each teacher would receive about 14 million dollars. Students began to wonder what teachers would do with the money if they did win. When asked many teachers said that they would go on vacation with the money. Others said they would use it to pay their children’s college tuition. The responses varied, but it became clear that no one intended to leave their job.

The Lottery has drawn millions of people every year for decades. It is no surprise that our intelligent, optimistic teachers entered in this year’s Powerball. A cash prize this large may not happen again for a long time. Although they didn’t win, the overall feeling is that they are happy they tried. After all, who wouldn’t spend five dollars to have a little bit of fun?