Jacksonville couple wins $10,000 in Dreams drawing for second time
By Julie Gerke
Two dreams already have come true in the RCHS/OSS Dreams Campaign to benefit Routt Catholic and Our Saviour schools — and one of the dreams came with a little déjà vu.
Irv and Nanette Klemmensen of Jacksonville won $10,000 in the early bird drawing Sunday, the second time in the campaign’s 30-year history for the couple to win that prize. The 2023 campaign also was the first time in recent memory for all 4,300 tickets to have been sold in advance of the early drawing.
“I’m waiting for the big one,” said Irv Klemmensen, who owns Klem’s Aero Repair at Jacksonville Municipal Airport. “I want to win the money and the Jeep both. We’ve been buying two tickets for I don’t know how many years.”
The couple hasn’t decided yet how to spend the windfall, he said. “I keep telling my wife I used up my luck when I married her, and she said, ‘We’ve still got some left.’”
The campaign offers $100 tickets to give buyers a chance to win prizes in the early bird drawing and then again in the main drawing, held during the schools’ Family Fun Fest in early September. Since 1993, the campaign has raised more than $6.6 million to benefit Jacksonville’s two Catholic schools, said campaign co-chairwoman Monica Eoff.
The money helps pay for general needs and tuition assistance, with those decisions made by leaders of the two schools. The schools have a combined 391 families with enrolled students.
The campaign started June 1 and Eoff said, “There’s a ton of excitement as we get closer to the drawings and there’s so much interest. We usually sell all 4,300 tickets but not before the early-bird drawing. … We’ve been blessed that we’ve always sold out before the grand prize drawing in September.”
The grand prizes, drawn at 6 p.m. Sept. 3, include $100,000, a 2023 Jeep Wrangler and 48 other cash prizes. Early bird prizes and their winners were $10,000, Irv and Nanette Klemmensen; $2,000, Joe and Lana Keen, Jacksonville; $1,000, Bill Baxter, Winchester; $1,000, Sharon Bonjean, Franklin; $1,000, Debbie Proffer, Roodhouse; and $500, Rick Edwards, Ashland.
An anonymous donor funded the $500 early bird prize, Eoff said, to honor the campaign’s anniversary. The donor also gave $500 to the campaign.
