10/18/07
Mystery Merchant winner surprised, collects $1,000 check
By Eric Goold
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The Manning Times Publisher Cleve Dowell, Mystery Merchant contest winner Tammy Shorter and Manning IGA Owner Lamar Kennedy. |
Tammy Shorter didn’t expect to win the Manning Times Mystery Merchant Contest, but she was delighted to collect the $1,000 check that went along with it.
“I was shocked when I opened up the paper and saw that I had won,” said Shorter last Thursday afternoon at IGA, where the check presentation took place.
“I thought the drawing was over a while ago,” said Shorter. “I thought I had missed it.”
The Mystery Merchant Contest was conducted for the first time over the past three or four months.
It involved 24 businesses in Manning and Summerton that advertise in the Manning Times. Two of the advertisers were chosen each week, and a profile of the advertiser was put in the paper.
Contestants in the game had to guess which of the Mystery Merchants were featured in the profile, and then turn in an entry form each week at the participating businesses.
Weekly winners were selected at random, and then three overall winners were presented with cash prizes from Manning Times publisher Cleve Dowell.
Shorter played the contest most of the time, but not every week.
“It was hard to guess who some of them were,” said Shorter. “It only takes one to win, I guess. It was a fun contest. It just gave me one more reason to read the paper each week.”
Shorter is a longtime employee at the CPA firm of Gibbons and Usry. She said she was pretty sure how she’d spend the money.
“There’s so many options,” she said. “I’m going to try to save it for Christmas presents, if I can. My son has had a wish list on the refrigerator now for the last three weeks. But maybe I’ll spend it on something for myself. It’s hard to resist!”
The final winning entrants were selected at random by Clarendon County Chamber of Commerce President Lamar Kennedy, who as the owner of IGA was the very first Mystery Merchant in the contest.
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