Ohio Teen Becomes First Winner of Vax-a-Million Scholarship

ENGLEWOOD, OH — Colleen Costello, who lives outside of Dayton, said she was having lunch with colleagues Wednesday afternoon when she talked about how quickly one's life could change for the better.

"I said, 'Today my life could change. I entered myself and all of our family members in the Vax-a-Million lottery, so one of us could win it,'" Costello said. "We looked at our phones to see what time the drawing would be. But after that, kind of forgot about it."

Costello said she was leaving work Wednesday night when she got the call from Gov. Mike DeWine informing her that Costello's 14-year-old son, Joseph, whose last day of eighth grade was Tuesday, was the winner of Vax-a-Million's first full-ride college scholarship.

"I thought maybe I was listening to (DeWine's) voice and it was a taped message," Costello said. "The more we talked, I realized it was (him) live. I was really thankful there was a bench nearby. I needed to sit down and absorb the information."

Costello said she quickly called her husband, Rich, who was at a coffee shop. Rich then picked up Joseph from church youth group. He told his son there was some good news, but he couldn't tell him what it was.

"He kept it a surprise," Joseph said. "When I got home, people from the governor's office told me I had won the lottery scholarship."

On Wednesday evening, DeWine and his wife, Fran, visited the Costellos at their home.

On Thursday morning, the Costellos, who have two other children, appeared on NBC's "Today," ABC's "Good Morning America" and on CNN. They also appeared virtually at a news conference with DeWine and Abbigail Bugenske, a 22-year-old Silverton resident who was the first winner of the $1 million prize.

Wednesday marked the first of five weekly Vax-a-Million drawings designed to incentivize Ohioans to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Residents must have received the vaccine in order to enter the drawings. DeWine said the program was launched when he noticed vaccine rates had been dropping in the state.

At the news conference, DeWine paraphrased a quote from former Cleveland Indians owner and master promoter Bill Veeck, which he said was an inspiration for the program. DeWine also mentioned Veeck in a New York Times opinion piece on Wednesday.

"Veeck said, 'I could give away 1,000 beers to 1,000 people and everybody would just go back and watch the ballgame. But if I gave 1,000 beers to one person, people would be talking about it.' We felt we needed to create excitement," DeWine said.

DeWine said 104,386 people ages 12 to 17 had signed up for the scholarship drawing, and 2,758,470 for the $1 million prize. He said the program has had the intended effect of increasing vaccine rates, especially in rural areas, where residents had been slower to take the vaccine initially.

"It (vaccine rates) has much more room to grow in rural areas than urban areas," DeWine said.

Colleen Costello said Joseph was vaccinated Saturday. She said she had been planning to get him vaccinated by the end of the month but moved it forward to be eligible for the drawing.

"From my perspective, it was a win-win," Colleen said about the Vax-a-Million program. "You get vaccinated and you have a resistance to COVID-19, and you enter and could win $1 million or a free ride to college. I would encourage anyone out there to go and do it. You don't have anything to lose, and (you have) everything to win."

Joseph, meanwhile, said he probably would not encourage others his age to get the vaccine because it is a decision they can make for themselves.

While Joseph still has four years before he goes to college, he mentioned Miami (OH) and The Ohio State University as schools he would consider.

Though the program states the winner gets a four-year, full-ride to any Ohio public college or university, DeWine said the money also could be applied to a private school or out-of-state school. The governor just said the scholarship amount would be pegged to the highest tuition at a public school in the state and include room, board, books and tuition at that school.