Diane McGowan had a good feeling about ticket #495.
She recalled telling her cousin, Debra Schnabel, that that number in particular just “felt like a winning ticket” after they each bought five tickets in the Haines Little League 50-50 Raffle at the softball tournament on Aug. 14. “We laughed about that, that I had that feeling,” McGowan said.
But her premonition proved true. McGowan’s ticket was selected out of 426 sold in the raffle, whose proceeds were to be divided 50-50 between the winner and Little League.
As it turned out, Little League ended up with more than 50%, because McGowan and her husband Jim — who were visiting from Phoenix — gave the money right back. They split the $4,260 check three ways, donating $1,420 each to Haines Little League, the softball tournament, and Jenae’s Playground.
McGowan said she and her husband had already decided that they would donate to Jenae’s Playground before they left town. Diane’s cousin Nancy Schnabel had been Jenae Larson’s godmother. The memorial playground will be built at the Haines School in remembrance of Larson, a local kindergarten teacher who was killed in the December 2020 Beach Road landslide.
The McGowans were visiting their Haines cousins for three weeks this summer, and they hope to return every summer now that Jim is retired. They’d like to stay for the whole summer, Diane said, but they’d have to find summer work. “I love the people. I just really adore the people of Haines,” Diane said. “I think it’s a wonderful community.”
She said they especially loved being included in the softball tournament. Jim, who has experience as an umpire, was asked to volunteer.
McGowan said winning the raffle felt “surreal,” especially because of the amount of money. “It never felt like ours in the first place — it felt like it belonged in the community.”