From NBC Washington

Few are so comfortable financially that they’d wait four months to claim $1 million owed to them, but Kofi Nyanor can keep a secret.

Nyanor, of Alexandria, Va., won $1 million in the lottery almost four months ago but only claimed his prize today.

“I didn’t want to talk a whole lot,” he explained. “I’m a confidential guy. I’m a private guy.”

But while he kept his cool, Virginia Lottery officials got worried. Two other winners of the New Year’s Millionaire Raffle already collected their prizes.

“We waited, we waited, we got worried,” said Paula Otto, executive director of the Virginia Lottery. “We asked the local media to help us find this winner. We hoped that they hadn’t lost the ticket.”

Not Nyanor, and what to do with the winnings was an easy decision for his family.

“For the whole of my life I’ve been poor, and what I’m trying to do is invest this money,” he said.

“I often tell winners they have beaten amazing odds and are lucky enough to win a big prize,” Otto said. “We hope they will be very good stewards of that money, so we recommend that they talk, potentially, to some legal folks as well as financial folks.”

Nyanor said he felt uncomfortable even taking a little time off from his job at a local hospital to pick up his check at the store where he bought it – the Super Dollar Saver on South Pickett Street, which gets $10,000. Tomorrow, it’s back to work.

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