Stettler has laid claim this week as the town of the national grand-prize winners in Home Hardware’s “Drive Home a Toyota” contest.
The name of customer Reg Judson of Red Deer was drawn as the winner of a 2010 Toyota Rav 4 while store employee Lisa Adams won a 2010 Toyota Corolla and store owners Albert and Lise Mikulecky won a 2010 Toyota Forklift.
“When you consider Home Hardware with over 1,000 stores in Canada, the odds of the winner in the Stettler store are unbelievable,” said Albert Mikulecky.
“Winners of these contests are usually from large cities so it’s good to have a winner from a rural community.”
Toyota and Home Hardware presented the three major prizes on May 31 in Stettler after much of the excitement was contained as the winners were prohibited from letting the word out for the past month.
“I wasn’t able to tell anyone about this for a month,” said Judson who got the phone call with the good news on May 3 from Home Hardware headquarters in Ontario.
Adams was on holidays when the whole saga began.
“We knew three weeks before she did,” said Lise Mikulecky.
Winners of the contest were not allowed to release any information until Home Hardware issued the media information.
Adams actually prepared herself for bad news when Alberta Mikulecky called her into his office to tell her the good news.
“When he told me, I said ‘what’,” said Adams, an employee for seven months.
“Lisa you are a grand prize winner, he told me, and then I had to sit down.”
She was more than elated.
“This is the first time I have ever won a prize,” said Adams.
For the ultimate winner, entering the contest was virtually a bit of good fortune as he came with his wife Leigh (Schroeder) to visit relatives on March 2.
“We come to Stettler quite a bit because my wife used to live here,” said Judson.
“We came out (on that day) to have a cup of coffee with my wife’s aunt June Baird and she wasn’t home, so we decided to walk along Main Street and check out all the stores.”
When they were in Home Hardware, the clerk Lisa Adams invited him to fill in an entry form for the contest although this was the first time they heard about the contest.