DARDANELLE — Bridgette Mayer walked out of Harps Food Store on Friday afternoon with a $250,000 oversize check tucked under her arm.
That’s a pretax keepsake. She also walked away with a $166,500 standardsize check.
Mayer is the grand-prize winner in Harps Food Stores Collect and Win Game. The game, held in honor of Harps’ 80th anniversary, began May 12 and ends Aug. 24. Prizes include cash, cars, grocery gift cards and electronics.
To play, customers collect small stickers when they shop at a Harps store. They can earn extra stickers by buying specif ic items. Players place stickers on their game boards - two-page, 8 1/2-by-11-inch booklets - and try to complete specific sequences.
For Mayer, winning the $250,000 grand prize meant matching six beverage stickers numbered C01 to C06.
On Friday, David Ganoung, a marketing specialist with Harps, presented Mayer with flowers and the oversize check at the Harps Food Store on Union Street.
They stood in the store’s produce section, between the tomato and corn displays. A few customers stopped to watch Mayer hold her check. One employee in the corner continued stocking cilantro. Music played on the store intercom.
Mayer had family and friends to her right, and several Harps employees stood to Ganoung’s left.
The mayor, an alderman and the police chief also watched the presentation.
“This is a big event around town. It’s quite a big day for Dardanelle and this young lady,” Dardanelle Mayor Carolyn Mc-Gee said.
Mayer, 27, is pregnant with her first child.
Harps has 65 stores sprinkled across Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. The employee-owned company hopes to eventually have hundreds of stores across the three states, said Huey Couch, director of advertising for Harps. And maybe for its 100th anniversary, Harps can have another contest - this time with a $1 million prize, he said.
Mayer and her roommate collected the stickers,never expecting to win but constantly joking about it.
Mayer had worried about paying impending bills.
“It’s OK. I have a plan,” she would joke. “I’m going to win this.”
While waiting for a camera crew to set up on Friday, Mayer asked for a chair for her mother.
The store manager brought one and Mayer’s mother plopped into it. She looked up at her daughter, smiled and said, “If I break this chair will you buy it?”
Mayer laughed and held her swollen belly.
“Sure Mom,” she said. “But don’t break it.”
After catching up on bills, Mayer said she’ll use the rest of her winnings to find her mother a new place to live.
“She took care of me for the first 18 years of my life. Now it’s time to return the favor,” she said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/24/2010