STARS Lottery Dream Home named after local resident

By Lethbridge Herald on January 9, 2026.

Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman STARS Very Important Patient, Broc Higginson and wife Stephanie Mills share the incident that led to Broc becoming STARS VIP and the naming of the STARS Lottery Dream Home while thanking STARS Chief Clinical Officer Cindy Seidl for the work STARS does to save peopleÕs lives Friday at the ÒThe Broc James,Ó STARS Lottery Dream Home.

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman

Lethbridge Herald

STARS Lottery is back for their 33rd year with one of the grand prize dream homes named after a local resident who is alive today thanks to STARS. 

“The Broc James” Dream Home was built by Van Arbor Homes it is located at 684 Devonia Road West, and it is named after STARS Very Important Patient Broc James Higginson, who is a former Principal of École Agnes Davidson school. 

 On Friday dozens filled the Dream Home to listen to Higginson and his wife Stephanie Mills recall the incident that led to Higginson becoming STARS VIP, tour the Dream Home and have an opportunity to purchase lottery tickets. 

When talking about having a house named after him, Higginson said it was a little overwhelming, but he was honuored and really proud. He also took the opportunity to thank Val and Mike Lowen, owners of Van Arbor Homes for choosing him to name the Dream Home after.  

Val explained that when they first signed a contract with STARS to build their Dream Homes in Lethbridge, they decided to name their first home in 2018 after their daughter Jenna Michelle, who unfortunately passed away at only four months of age, while they lived out on a farm and had a medical emergency. 

“We decided when we got the STARS contract that we would honour her by naming the first Home after her and then subsequent STARS homes would be named after other children whose lives were saved by STARS,” said Val. 

She explained that this year the exception as she learned Higginson’s story and she was inspired by it to name the house after him. She also mentioned that since he was a principal at a school, he influenced a lot of children’s lives during his career and hic connection to children encouraged her to choose him as well. 

“I also learned today that he’s actually a leap year baby, so has only had 11 birthdays and therefore he is a child. So, I didn’t deviate from naming the house after children,” said Val. 

Higginson shared his story with those in attendance, with some parts of it being shared by his wife, as she knew what happened while he was unconscious. 

“Five and half years ago I was not feeling well. Steph was out in BC with family at our nearly completed cabin and I wasn’t feeling good. I figured, you know what, I’m just going to get ready for work and next thing I knew, I woke up in ICU at Foothills Hospital,” said Higginson. 

His wife explained that he had a seizure at home on June 24, 2020, probably around 5 a.m. and was unconscious. 

“He had aspirated, so he was having difficulty breathing and when he was brought into the Emergency room, he had very low vitals and they were concerned that he wasn’t going to make it,” said Mills. 

She said the emergency room doctor called STARS immediately and he was airlifted to Calgary. Mills added that the ER doctor called her and said she needed to make her way to Calgary and to be prepared to spend some time up there. 

“I drove quickly to Calgary from BC and when I arrived Broc was intubated and in a coma. They needed to do various tests to see what caused the seizure and they found out that he had two brain tumors,” said Mills. 

She said Higginson spent six weeks in Calgary, he had surgery to remove the tumors. The first tumor was successfully removed, but the second one was not. 

“Brock still has part of the tumor in his brain. He then went on to 33 rounds of radiation and six rounds of chemotherapy. Brock is living with terminal brain cancer. It is something that does not go away. It will come back eventually, but he is considered stable right now, which means it’s not growing,” said Mills. 

“Huge thank you to STARS and Val and Mike from Van Arbor Homes for their continued support of this, and to everybody else out there that continued to support STARS, whether that’s buying a lottery ticket or in another fashion. You help save lives and that’s just the straight truth,” said Higginson. “I wouldn’t be here without the support of all those that have done so.”

Last year, STARS celebrated its 40th anniversary and Jeri-Lynn Johnston, vice-president of the STARS Foundations said they are proud to say that they have carried over 63,000 missions in those 40 years. 

“We averaged 10 missions a day across the organization that stands the three provinces across Western Canada. And that costs us approximately $12.2 million to operate one base as STARS and we operate six across the three provinces,” said Johnston. 

She said the STARS Alberta Lottery is their largest annual fundraiser, which collects enough money to fund approximately one of their bases in Alberta. They have one in Calgary, one in Edmonton and one in Grand Prairie.