While talking to his children, Frey said one of them asked him to send a photo of the winning scratchy however when he went to grab it, he realised he had misplaced it.
Recalling his steps since realising he had won US$500,000 (NZ$806,927) there was only one place it could be, inside the store.
“I was shaking pretty good then, I think,” he told The Sun, adding, “Fortunately, I was still in the parking lot of the Casey’s store, and I ran back inside and asked the employee for the ticket.
“She was so flustered that she forgot to give it to me the first time.”
After claiming his prize, Frey told US news outlet Newsflash he has big plans on what he will do with the money, revealing it will help him and his wife Marian move to another town to be closer to their children.
But that’s not all, as well as sharing some of the money with their loved ones, they are also set to make generous donations to charities they have supported for years.
“This is going to help a lot,” he told the outlet.
Following the win, Frey has continued on with his day-to-day life, even attending church on Sunday to give his weekly sermon.
“They told me I did a nice job on the sermon, so I said: ‘Well, I guess there was something at work in the middle of all that’.”
