Raffle Produces First Local Winner

12/30/2014 

John Reagan was leading a work meeting when his cell phone rang on Dec. 30, a Tuesday morning. The caller ID showed an unknown number, so he ignored it.

When it rang again less than a minute later, he thought it might be an emergency.

“I answered because my kids are on vacation (from school),” Reagan said. “I wanted to make sure they were ok.”

Luckily, there was no family emergency. The phone call came to deliver the news that Reagan was the grand prize winner of SUNY Cortland’s Super Bowl Raffle. His name was picked at random from a raffle drum Tuesday morning, making him the owner of two tickets to Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Ariz., on Feb. 1, plus a three-night hotel stay and $1,000 for other trip expenses.

“At first I thought it was a joke from some of my friends (at the College),” he said. “It was unbelievable because I’ve never won anything of substantial value before.

“I’d never be able to afford to go without the opportunity of the raffle, so I couldn’t be more excited.”

A certified public accountant who owns Prime Payroll Relief, a payroll bureau business in Cortland, Reagan is the first local winner of the sixth-year raffle. He participates annually and this year purchased several of the $50 raffle tickets, including one as a gift during the holiday season.

All told, the drawing included 342 entries and pulled in more than $15,000 for student scholarships. The Super Bowl tickets to University of Phoenix Stadium, valued at $2,000, were provided to SUNY Cortland as part of the College’s partnership with the New York Jets.

Matt McSherry, an accountant from the firm of Port, Kashdin and McSherry, audited the entire proceedings.

“I’ve always participated because I like to support the efforts of the Cortland College Foundation,” said Reagan, who grew up in Cortland and attended Tompkins Cortland Community College before graduating from Binghamton University.

Shortly after receiving the news, he phoned his family members. He said he hasn’t yet decided who to bring, although it likely will be his wife. The fact that the big game will be played in a warm weather city in February, a year after taking place in New Jersey, proved to be icing on the cake.

“With the winters we have here, any place warm would have been great,” he said. “Arizona will be wonderful.”