"About a week later, I go back to the store to buy a Diet Mountain Dew when the owner tells me, 'Congratulations,'" Perdue recalled. "I said, 'For what?' And she said, 'You won the lottery.' I said, 'I wish.' She said, 'You did, I have you on video.'"
Perdue said he and his wife searched high and low for the ticket, but started to fear it may have been thrown in the trash.
"I've been beating myself up for three months thinking I threw this ticket away," his wife said. "I did throw a ticket away, but it was an older ticket. Then I convinced myself maybe it was this ticket."
Perdue, who works as president of Kiriu USA, said he was hosting a visitor from another plant earlier this month and went out to check on the condition of a company car for the visitor to use.
He said he opened the door and spotted the ticket on the front seat.
"I look down and saw it," Perdue said. "I picked it up and I saw October 30th and I said, 'That's my ticket!'"
He said the car is rarely used, and the ticket must have fallen out of his pocket the last time he drove it last year.
"I don't know how long it might have sat out there if I hadn't needed the car." Perdue said. "I was shaking a little bit."
Perdue immediately sent a photo of the ticket to his wife.
"I was relieved," his wife recalled.
The couple said they are considering taking a vacation with the prize money.
"She asked me last night what I wanted to do with it," Perdue said.
"You've only had three months to think about it," his wife said.
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