A lottery sign inside a store in a Tama County man’s hometown prompted him to check his Powerball tickets and discover he’d won a big prize.

After letting his Powerball tickets accumulate in his wallet for nearly five months, Lyle Brehm of Dysart checked his tickets Friday and found a $10,000-winning ticket from the Feb. 7 drawing.

Brehm, 43, said he filled his vehicle up with gas at John’s Qwik Stop, 702 Wilson St. in Dysart on June 25 and noticed a sign near the cash register inside the store advertising that the search was on for the person who purchased a $10,000-winning Powerball ticket in February, but hadn’t claimed the prize yet.

“I had a good feeling when I saw that,” Brehm told lottery employees Friday as he claimed his prize at the lottery’s regional office in Cedar Rapids. “(The winning ticket) was still in my wallet along with a few other ones.”

Brehm said he’s an occasional Powerball player and typically only plays when the jackpot is really big.

“I often times will play when the jackpot gets higher. And normally when I buy the ticket I put it into my wallet and if I don’t see that the jackpot was from Iowa I don’t necessarily check the ticket right away,” he said.

The winning numbers in the Feb. 7 drawing, when the jackpot was $394.9 million, were: 5-10-21-34-58 and Powerball 33. The Power Play number was 5. No one won the jackpot that night and it continued to grow until it hit $564.1 million on Feb. 11 and was split by three tickets purchased in North Carolina, Texas and Puerto Rico.

Brehm’s winning ticket matched four of the white balls and the Powerball to win a $10,000 prize. He said that if he’d won the jackpot he wouldn’t have waited to claim his prize.

“(I’d) go looking at that one a little bit quicker. I wouldn’t have carried that one around for four months,” he said.

Brehm said he plans to save his winnings.

Winning numbers may be checked at the lottery website at www.ialottery.com or through the winning numbers hot line at (515) 323-4633. Winning numbers may also be checked with lottery retail outlets or by calling the lottery at (515) 725-7900 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Players may visit the Iowa Lottery at 13001 University Ave. in Clive or go to one of the lottery’s regional offices in Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, Mason City or Storm Lake to claim prizes.

Since the lottery’s start in 1985, its players have won more than $3.4 billion in prizes while the lottery has raised more than $1.6 billion for the state programs that benefit all Iowans.

Today, lottery proceeds in Iowa have three main purposes: They provide support for veterans, help for a variety of significant projects through the state General Fund, and backing for the Vision Iowa program, which was implemented to create tourism destinations and community attractions in the state and build and repair schools. Brehm is pictured at right with his $10,000 check from the Iowa Lottery.