Local business makes client’s day with the cost of a new well

For the past seven years, F.C. Hammond Well Drilling has been giving one happy customer a reason to smile. All of the invoices from the company’s previous year’s drilled wells are put into their annual well draw, with the winner receiving the cost of their well. The odds of winning vary from year to year – this year, 98 invoices were included.

Mayor Scott Aitchison was on hand to do the honours, drawing the lucky invoice number in front of F.C. Hammond staff.

The winner, Gord Cook of Port Carling, hasn’t been reached yet about his win, but the company’s office manager, Julie Denning, said that responses of past winners have mostly ranged from joy to disbelief. “One woman cried when we told her. Another man said it couldn’t be him because he never wins anything.”

The company’s founder, Frank Hammond, was Huntsville’s first well driller. The family sold the company to Norm Yearley, who has more than 30 years of experience in the industry, in 2005. His son, Jeff, later joined him in the business.