Bob Twigg, 62, a former USA Today reporter and editor of the Loudoun Times-Mirror who won $9 million in the Virginia lottery in 1996, died Nov. 16 of lung cancer at his home in Leesburg.
Mr. Twigg worked for Gannett's USA Today for 16 years in a number of roles, including White House reporter, national editor and senior reporter. He covered the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations, including overseas travel, and worked on the newspaper's book about the Persian Gulf War.
In 1994, he took over the West Coast desk, thinking it would be a nice change of pace. It was a week before Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman were slain in Los Angeles and former football star O.J. Simpson was charged in the case. The crime and trial were front-page news for a year and a half.
After Simpson's acquittal, Mr. Twigg was a roving reporter, covering stories including the Virginia Military Institute's reluctance to accept women, Hurricane Fran in the Carolinas and Oregon forest fires.
Robert Norwood Twigg was born in Cumberland, Md., and attended what was then Frostburg State College. He started working at newspapers in Cumberland and Hagerstown before hiring on with the Pensacola News-Journal, a Gannett paper in Florida, where he became editor. He joined USA Today in 1983.
In January 1996, working a Sunday morning shift in the USA Today newsroom, he looked at a newswire story about the winning lottery numbers, 3-15-17-28-33-37. "I was dumbstruck. I didn't move. I just stared. I had won the lottery!" he wrote in a story for his newspaper. "I ran down the hall to the bathroom. That's how my Sunday began. Then disbelief took over. I did not say a word -- to anyone. I didn't call my wife; she was at church. I didn't tell my co-workers. Not a peep. I absolutely refused to believe I beat the 7.1 million-to-1 odds."
Two hours later, the Associated Press reported that he didn't have to share the prize. The lone winner of the lottery, it said, came from Leesburg. Mr. Twigg, unable to reach his wife by phone, pleaded an upset stomach to his boss and carefully drove home. "With the ticket tucked in my shirt pocket, I spent more than an hour driving the 38 miles from my office to home."
The next day, a lawyer-friend verified the ticket with the state lottery office. Mr. Twigg begged off a news conference, wanting to break the news in his own paper.
Mr. Twigg wrote that he had been struggling with family medical bills, even though his company health insurance paid 80 percent of its cost. In addition to his journalism job, he had taken a part-time job at a hardware store and drove an eight-year-old Pontiac with 187,000 miles on the odometer that had just failed a state inspection. He had dropped out of the office Super Bowl pool because he had already lost $31.50 during the playoffs and didn't think he had the luck to pick the winner.
His last USA Today byline appeared in November 1996.
That wasn't the end of his career, however. He became publisher of Senior News in Loudoun County in 1998 and editor of the Loudoun Times-Mirror in 2005. He left that paper in 2007 and finished writing his first novel in October 2008, just as he received a cancer diagnosis.
He volunteered at the Lakota Reservation in South Dakota in 1997 and volunteered in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He was on the Loudoun County library board and volunteered for Leesburg's Christmas in April, the Loudoun YMCA and the Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing Center.
His marriages to Barbara Twigg and Carol Twigg ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife of 18 years, former Leesburg mayor B.J. Webb of Leesburg and Longboat Key, Fla.; a son from his first marriage, Michael Twigg of Los Angeles; two stepsons, Kevin Wright of Leesburg and Russell Wright of Atlanta; three sisters, Jean Blake of Cumberland, Elizabeth Twigg of Alexandria and Janet Davis of Glen Burnie; and four brothers, James Twigg of Annapolis, John Twigg of Destin, Fla., Joseph Twigg of Cumberland and Thomas Twigg of Greenbelt; and two grandchildren.
Source : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/26/AR2009112602215.html
The news that Dubai World is struggling to pay $59 billion (£36 billion) worth of foreign debts may serve as a rude awakening to those living the Dubai dream.
Speaking to the Guardian prior to the announcement that the state-owned property investment company is struggling with its debts, Rudy Bier, 30, a property consultant from the UK who moved to Dubai three years ago, said the atmosphere in the emirate has definitely changed.
"When I first moved here everyone had a lot of disposable income and I wouldn't even look at prices in the supermarket. But that's definitely changed, people are feeling the pinch. Everyone's a little more cautious," she said.
The financial insecurity experienced throughout the globe in the last 18 months may also have highlighted the importance of expat medical insurance, particularly for those living in countries such as the UAE, where there is no state healthcare system.
Although the emirates have invested heavily in developing leading medical facilities, those without expat health insurance may find the cost of treatment prohibitively expensive.
Source : http://www.expatriatehealthcare.com/news/Expat-medical-insurance-news:-The-beginning-of-the-end-for-Dubai?-672
