Waitress Aurora Kephart From Oregon Gets Winning Lottery Ticket As A Tip; Cashes $17,500 [VIDEO]

Aurora Kephart, a 25-year-old waitress and bartender at Conway's Restaurant and Lounge in Springfield, Oregon was shocked to find out she had received a very generous tip from a custumer. She told ABC News she often receives Keno tickets from one of her regular customers, but she was dumbstruck last week when one of the unusual tips paid her a rather large amount. "He buys multiple tickets and he'll hold out the tickets and say, 'Pick which one you want,'" she said about one customer in particular. "That's a normal thing between us."

Recently, he let her pick two unplayed lottery tickets. She did and won $5 on the first ticket that she scanned, but when she scanned the second one, she realized she had won $17,500. "I automatically handed him back the ticket and I was like, 'I'm sorry. I can't take it!'" Aurora recalls. "He had me sign it and said, 'You're the only one who can cash it now.'" "The reaction (in the bar) was crazy," she told The Register-Guard. "Everyone was so amped up. I mean how often does that happen somewhere like Thurston? The bar is 80 percent regulars, so everyone knows everyone. People were so excited for me."

"You do things with a good heart, in good spirits, but when something is that big, you kinda wonder if they're going like 'Oh, I wish I could've kept that one' but it is not that way with this guy at all," said George Conway, the owner of the restaurant where Aurora works. He added great things to say about his employee as well, "This couldn't have happened to a nicer individual and it's really easy once you talk to her a little bit that you can tell why somebody would want to be so nice to give her a ticket."

As for what the lucky waitress/bartender will do/is doing with the money, she gave a cut of her winnings to the customer who gave her the ticket in the first place. "I forced him to take it. I'm too humble for that," she explains. "I absolutely just want to pay it forward. I don't intend to keep all that money for myself." She also wants to save most of it. "I have not bought anything, not shoes, not a T-shirt...I have a couple of bills I'm going to pay off, but for the most part I'm just going to save it. I don't want to blow money just because I came into money," and her only investment for now will be a couch. "I never realized how expensive couches were," she said. "Instead of waiting till Christmas or later, now I can buy something I really need."