Vincent Bonanno of Apex made a stop for lottery tickets Monday morning and walked out of the store as the first winner of a Bonus Bucks $200,000 top prize.

Bonanno, a retired UPS driver, purchased his lucky $5 ticket from the Food Lion on West William Street in Apex and scratched it right there in the store.

“I never expected it to be the $200,000,” he said. “The first thing I did was I looked at it, and then I held it to my heart and I looked up and I said, ‘Thank you.’ I couldn’t believe I won that amount of money.”

He went straight home to share the news with his wife and daughter.

“I walked into the house and I told my wife, “We’re going to make a donation to our church and we’re going to buy a new car,’” said Bonanno. “She said, ‘No, we’re going out to dinner tonight!’”

The two drove straight to lottery headquarters in Raleigh. After federal and state taxes, he took home $141,501. They planned their celebratory dinner Monday night.

“I always said I was going to win,” said Bonanno. “I said this day is going to come sometime that I do win a big amount and it did today.”

Bonus Bucks launched this month with six top prizes of $200,000. Five remain to be won.

Ticket sales from scratch-offs make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $700 million per year for education. For details on how $62.6 million raised by the lottery made a difference in Wake County last year, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.