FORT SILL – Army veteran Shala Morita said she didn’t believe she had won a $10,000 shopping spree in the Army & Air Force Exchange Service’s Subway Sip. Rip. Ultimate Trip sweepstakes.
“This can’t be real. There has to be some kind of catch,” she remembers thinking after pulling the game piece on a drink during lunch at Subway in the Fort Sill Exchange food court.
A verification email from the Exchange in October convinced her — and the eighth-grade teacher at Lawton’s MacArthur Middle School confirmed her prize on the last day she could submit her winning information.
“I almost didn’t go through with it, but I am so glad I did,” said Morita, who served for three years as an air defense artillery officer at Fort Bliss and in Saudi Arabia. “It’s such a nice treat for my family, especially during the holiday season.”
She and her husband Richard, an Army veteran and equipment supervisor at the Fires Center of Excellence at Fort Sill, have 17- and 19- year-old sons who need laptops, Morita said.
“I think there might be some new living room furniture in our future and maybe a new mattress, but the laptops are the first priority,” she said.
New furniture is probably also in the future for one of Morita’s sons, who attends Cameron University in Lawton.
The Fort Sill Exchange honored Morita at a short ceremony Dec. 5. She is the second military shopper at Fort Sill to win a $10,000 prize. Staff Sgt. Frank Sanchez won his spree Aug. 17.
The sweepstakes is part of the Exchange’s 125th anniversary celebration, which commemorates its “We go where you go” mission.
“Shala Morita served her nation as a veteran and is molding the leaders of tomorrow as a teacher,” said Fort Sill Exchange General Manager Donald Walter. “The Exchange is thrilled to reward her for her service with this sweepstakes prize.”