Pie in the Sky

When Cleveland's newspaper strike began on Nov. 1, the Ohio Lottery Commission faced a challenge: how to spread the news of the winning numbers every week without newspapers. A federal statute prohibits announcing lottery results on radio or television.

The commission has come up with a variety of imaginative answers. It has sent town criers in colonial garb through downtown streets to call out the jackpot numbers. A cowboy has attached the winning figures to his saddle and galloped around a central square shouting:

"The numbers are coming!" Bikini-clad women from a model agency have braved December blasts to stand coyly beside easels proclaiming the lucky digits.

But the commission's greatest essay was to hire a helicopter to banner the winning numbers through the skies over Cleveland. Strapped to a utility pole, a telephone-cable splicer named Robert S.

Albertini took one glance aloft, pulled out his 50-c- ticket, and discovered that he had just won $15,000.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.