* I received a press release yesterday announcing that the Illinois Petroleum Marketers Association had chosen Josh Sharp to replace its longtime executive vice president Bill Fleischli, who is retiring soon. I didn’t know that Fleischli was retiring, but he and his spouse had one heck of a day yesterday…

A horseshoe may have been the good luck charm for the woman who won more than a half-million dollars Thursday night from the Knights of Columbus Attendance Raffle.

Cynthia Fleischli picked the winning number Thursday, scoring the $625,549 jackpot in the progressive game that has been held for more than 95 weeks.

Her husband, Bill Fleischli, was wearing a ring with a horseshoe on it that once was owned by his father. After people told him he was wearing it upside down, he flipped the ring. A short time later, he was driving his wife to fill out the paperwork to collect her prize. […]

She has played weekly, and the mother of four said she wants to buy a one-level house with her winnings. She is retired from the Illinois Office of Tourism and the Illinois Grape Growers and Vintners Association.

I’ve known Bill forever, so I called him this morning and he said he was offered a couple of tickets to the Cardinals game yesterday, but turned them down. It’s a good thing he did. He said he and his wife have been going to the drawings every Thursday for about two months. “I fell over,” he said, describing the experience as “surreal.”

He said the two hope to travel now that they’re both retired. “It’s been a great run and I’ll miss it,” Fleischli said about his more than 25 years at the IPMA.