By DIANE GASPER-O'BRIEN

dobrien@dailynews.net

Dana Goetz is looking forward to coming home later this week after an extended stay in California.

And what a homecoming it will be for the Hays woman.

Goetz will find in her garage a new car, as well as a couple of checks worth a total of $6,000.

In a most unusual situation, Goetz was the winner of not just one, not two, but three large prizes at last month's Auction for Christian Education at Thomas More Prep-Marian High School.

The fundraiser, the largest of the year for the local Catholic school, earned its highest amount ever in its 34-year history with a net total of $245,000.

The auction also includes several raffles with large cash prizes and a car, and Dana Goetz -- in one single night -- became one of the biggest winners ever of the event.

Her name was pulled out of a container for one of three $1,000 prizes, then again for the $5,000 prize and again for the 2007 Ford Mustang.

Neither she nor her husband, Chris, were there to enjoy it.

Dana Goetz has been in California since last fall helping out the Goetz's youngest daughter, Laura, and her family because Laura's husband, Bryan Rupke of the U.S. Marines, had been deployed overseas.

Chris Goetz, a 1975 graduate of TMP, and his wife have attended many an ACE auction during the years.

But they missed this year's event because Dana was out of town, and Chris was getting ready to leave town on a fishing trip.

That didn't stop Chris from buying some raffle tickets, though.

He bought a strip of three tickets -- on a buy-two-get-one-free deal -- for each of the three main raffles and put his wife's name on all the tickets.

"I've never won anything there before, so I would have been tickled with one thing," Dana Goetz said. "Chris is usually the lucky one. I guess he still is. He's the one who bought the tickets."

Some friends of the Goetzes went to their home after the auction was finished late Saturday night and told him about their winnings. And he called his wife in California the next morning to tell her the news.

Dana Goetz admitted she was stunned.

"I didn't believe him for the first 10 minutes," she said. "He said, 'You don't sound excited.' And I told him it was really hard to believe it was true."

The prize drawing was a little bizarre all around. Another winner of the $1,000 prizes, donated by Dave and Jim Werth of Hays Car and Truck Alignment, was drawn by Jim Werth.

The name on the ticket he drew -- his wife, Susan.

"I was the one carrying around the containers, and I was dumfounded," said Wanda Billinger, director of the TMP-Marian Alumni Association. "Even if you were there, you just couldn't believe it ... the odds of that happening."

After a night of eating, bidding and buying -- and for Dana Goetz, winning -- organizers were pleased to announce the nearly quarter of a million dollar profit. That amount put the grand total earned since 1975 at more than $3.5 million.

ACE this year raised $23,690 for a capital improvement item on the auction for a chapel renovation project for TMP-Marian.

And Holy Family Elementary School in Hays came out a big winner, too. Three dinners designated for Holy Family brought $11,000.

The largest single ticket item was, as usual, the black-tie dinner for 20 people. The dinner, bought every year by Don Bickle from Hays, this year brought $15,000.

The Goetzes' two daughters - Laura and Jennifer - both are graduates of TMP-Marian, and Dana Goetz said she is pleased the auction brings so much money into the school. The Goetzes have donated items for the auction in the past.

This time, Dana Goetz just happened to be on the receiving end.

"I don't think it's really going to soak in," she said, "until I get home."