By Hamil R. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 13, 1998; Page B03

Willie Montgomery scrutinized the newspaper early Sunday morning before he decided the news was important enough to wake his wife.

"I have something to tell you, but don't die," he cautioned.

Then the Prince George's County man told his wife of four decades that he had hit a $10 million jackpot in the D.C. Lottery's Powerball game. Blanche Montgomery jumped from bed and ran to their son's room.

"Your daddy is a millionaire!" she told him.

Montgomery, 67, presented the winning ticket at the D.C. Lottery claims center yesterday. Then the retired construction foreman called the phone company and asked for a new, unlisted telephone number.

And after that? Champagne? Disney World? A Mercedes-Benz showroom?

"I had to get my tires rotated," he said, pointing to the Chevy Blazer in the garage of his neat brown-brick home in Fort Washington.

For the record, Montgomery did buy a bottle of cognac after getting his tires taken care of.

"We have no plans; we just want to take it easy," said Montgomery, who seemed relaxed almost to the point of appearing expressionless.

Montgomery credited his wife's desire for a chicken dinner with the inspiration that led to their riches.

"She wanted to cook stewed chicken, so we went down to the market and bought a fresh chicken, and on the way out, I decided to buy a lottery ticket," he said.

He stopped at the Market Deli, at one end of the Farmer's Market near Fifth Street and Florida Avenue NE, and let the lottery computer pick two numbers for him. It spit out one -- 7-9-17-20-4 with the Powerball number 25 -- that was worth $10 million.

The Montgomerys are planning to celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary in a Northern Virginia hotel, an occasion that Blanche Montgomery, 60, called a second honeymoon.

"I am just happy and thankful to God," she said.

When asked what special anniversary gift the newly minted millionaire planned to buy for his wife, Willie Montgomery smiled and said, "Me."

Athena Ware, spokeswoman for the D.C. Lottery, said Montgomery chose to receive annual checks for 25 years instead of a lump sum. Powerball is played in the District and 20 states. Ware said Montgomery was the city's first grand-prize winner since the minimum Powerball jackpot jumped to $10 million from $5 million last year.

Ron Moore, a neighbor of the Montgomerys, said a couple who lived across the street moved away two years ago after winning a $1 million lottery jackpot. Since then, Moore said, he has bought several tickets each week.

"All of the good luck that is happening in this neighborhood hopefully will rub off on me," he said.