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Meet Karen McHale, Winner of the ($1.2 million) Fifty Dollar House in Edgewater

By
Real Estate Sales Representative with Keller Williams

We've all driven by it dozens of times along Route 2, vowing that we'd plunk down $50 for a raffle ticket...and maybe, just maybe get lucky.

But a Colorado woman who never did drive by - indeed, who has never even visited the Annapolis area - turned out to be the lucky winner of the 6 bedroom, 4 1/2 bath, 6,000+ square foot home known locally as the Fifty Dollar House.

Karen McHale, a chemical engineer from Idaho Springs, Colorado, claims she's never won a thing in her life. But when she heard about the raffle on the news and learned that ticket sales would help support a good cause - We Care and Friends - she said, "Why not? Even if I don't win, I'll be helping out."

Married and a mother of two, McHale promptly put the raffle out of her head. Then out of the blue she received a phone call this past Friday afternoon from Tom Walters, the home's owner, informing her that she held the winning ticket. "At first I thought it was a joke! I was excited, and a little in shock. Then I wondered - what am I going to do with it?"

Her friends tell her she should keep it - "so they have a vacation home!" But she may decide to sell the home.  

If so, chances are she'll use some of her windfall to help fund a self-publishing venture she's launched.

A volunteer firefighter, McHale has created a team of fictional characters she calls Fire Station Buddies - Flash, Scout, Tundra and others - as a way to teach children about safety, science, engineering and problem solving.

The first in a series of Fire Buddies books - The Legend - is already on sale. A portion of her book earnings will go into a fund McHale has started to help support volunteer fire departments across the country.

We hope you sell a million!

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