Judy Ruppe (center) won two pizzas a week for a year from Pizza Inn in Gaffney. The contest was part of the restaurant's 35th anniversary celebration. Gaffney's Judy Ruppe could hardly believe it when she heard she'd won two free pizzas a week for a year.

But the prize was no pie in the sky.

As part of the 35th anniversary celebration of Pizza Inn, Ruppe entered a drawing for 52 gift certificates for large, two-topping pizzas.

"I couldn't believe I had won," Ruppe said Wednesday when she claimed her gift certificates. "I only entered one time and I didn't even know that this was the prize. When I signed up they said it was a drawing for free pizza. I thought they meant a free pizza, not 52 pizzas."

The pies won't go to waste, though, as Ruppe is certainly a regular for Pizza Inn co-owner and operator Trish Greiner and her partner Rod Williams.

"We did the drawing at a regular meeting of the Pizza Inns in the upstate," Greiner said. "My cousin Linda Turner Patterson who runs the Pizza Inn in Spartanburg did the drawing."

Ruppe has been visiting Pizza Inn since the second week it was open in Gaffney.

"The first time we came here, I didn't really like pizza," Ruppe said. "A bunch of our friends ordered Canadian bacon and I didn't like it. But, I kept trying different kinds of toppings until I found one I liked. I do probably eat here at least once a week. I think I'll save some of the gift certificates and use them to provide pizza for the youth at our church, Bethany Baptist."

With just one entry, Ruppe didn't have good odds of winning the top prize.

"We had over 500 people enter," Greiner said. "I can't believe we picked out her one."

One other part of the contest involved writing a brief answer to the question, 'Why do you like Pizza Inn?' on the entry form.

"There were a lot of great answers," Greiner added. "Like, it's better than this or that competitor's pizza, to one who wrote 'It's the only kind of pizza I've ever had so it's all I know' on one."

Ruppe had her own response.

"This is my favorite restaurant for pizza," she said. "I remember when my husband and I used to come here and he'd call it pizza pie. I just wrote, 'It's good' and that's why I like it."