Bel Air Woman Takes Publishers Clearing House Where It Has Never Gone Before

BEL AIR, MD - Publishers Clearing House is known to show up unannounced to surprise its sweepstakes winners on camera. Usually, the team delivers the message at someone's door or workplace without incident.

That was not the case with Betsy Andreycak of Bel Air, who gave the Prize Patrol a new set of hoops to jump through to get to her.

"I am the site nurse at the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, and they actually came to Peach Bottom. But a nuclear power station has pretty high security," Andreycak told Patch.

"This was a first," Danielle Lam of the Prize Patrol said on an episode of Inside Publishers Clearing House this week. On the show, she explained how the team captured Andreycak's winning moment.

First, the Prize Patrol flew to BWI and picked up a bouquet from Flowers By Lucy in Abingdon.

At Andreycak's house in Bel Air, nobody was home but her neighbor was out gardening. They got in touch with her husband, who was working at a chemical plant near the Key Bridge.

"He told them where I worked and gave them my number," Andreycak told Patch.

Peach Bottom was a new experience for the Prize Patrol, which never dealt with a nuclear power station.

"They took us out of the car, searched the car, under the car, under the hood," Howie Guja of the Prize Patrol said, using the word "stressful" to describe the experience, which also involved careful examination of the check. "They didn't laugh at any of my jokes," he added.

Andreycak was questioned by security why she had not given the requisite 12-hours' notice for her guests.

"I didn't have any idea who this was or what this was," Andreycak recalled. "Before they got to Peach Bottom, they called me to say that they had a special delivery that they needed my signature for....Then security called me and said, 'Publishers Clearing House is here to see you,' and then of course I knew something was up."

Since Peach Bottom would not permit camera use on the site, the team drove out to an access road nearby and pulled up near a ballpark, where Andreycak was informed of her win.

She was presented with a jumbo check for $10,000, which she noted will probably be closer to $7,000 after taxes.

"Ten thousand dollars is nice amount of money to get, but when you think about it, it really doesn't go very far," she said. "We don't have any big plans for the money and are probably just going to put it away."

While she and her husband will try to create a financial cushion for themselves, they may also share some with charity and their adult children who have two children of their own.

Andreycak said she is the first person she knows to win Publishers Clearing House, a sweepstakes she said she was entering online. "It's a mindless thing," Andreycak said. "You kind of just click it off, and you know you've made your entry."

Entering the sweepstakes comes with a bit of nostalgia for Andreycak.

"I remember my parents getting mailings, and my father particularly would send these things back," she said. "If you've been doing this, just continue doing it. It pays."

Photo of the July 25 win courtesy of Betsy Andreycak.