Waipahu fan could win a house
Advertiser Staff
One day, Waipahu's Gregory Severino is sitting in a realtor's office waiting to pay his rent and decides to fill out a contest form.
A few months later, he's told he'll be sitting alongside Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa during the Major League Baseball All-Star Home Run Derby with a chance to win $250,000 toward a new home.
Severino's baseball fantasy came to life when he was one of eight randomly selected from about 250,000 entries nationwide in a contest sponsored by Century 21, the world's largest residential real estate sales organization.
During Monday's Home Run Derby — which is part of Major League baseball's All-Star Game festivities at Miller Park in Milwaukee — Severino will be paired with a major leaguer.
If the player is he matched with wins the contest, Severino will win the prize.
"It's one winner after another," said Severino, 40, who has resettled in Hawai'i and has an 11-month-old son.
Severino remembers the day he walked into Ron Nakatsu's office, a local Century 21 affiliate.
"I knew it was a contest. I never thought much about it (after). I was just killing time," he said.
When a marketing agency representative called Severino June 7, "I thought it was a telemarketer and I didn't believe him at first."
But when the representative told Severino that "he was going to send me plane tickets and I wouldn't have to buy anything, I started believing."
Severino and his family (wife Quenna and son Max) will arrive in Milwaukee tomorrow. "The plane tickets are $1,200 apiece," he said.
He said he'll stay at the Milwaukee Hilton for six nights and has a "jam-packed" itinerary.
Severino, a certified arborist who manages the tree department for a landscape maintenance firm, lived in Hawai'i some 30 years ago, but never got the islands out of his system.
"The ocean, the mountains, just the way the air smells. I've been to the Mainland and all over, but nothing compares to Hawai'i," said Severino, who moved back eight years ago.
Severino feels fortunate to be back and senses his luck hasn't run out.
"It doesn't matter who the favorite is (in the home-run derby)," he said. "If I'm really lucky, the winner will get matched up with me."
