On Oct. 20, the second big talk show host this month made her mark on Dallas territory ... well, almost.

Oprah graced our town last week to visit the State Fair of Texas, and she drew plenty of fans to Fair Park and Victory Park as she joined the WFAA news team in their 5 p.m. newscast.

This time, the buzz of daytime royalty coming to town was spread through Twitter.

Around 7:47 p.m. Oct. 19, @TheEllenShow Twitter page, which is supposedly tweets from Ellen DeGeneres herself, gave fans their first hint something was coming.

"My tweets MIGHT be going to Dallas tomorrow…and there MIGHT be awesome prizes involved…I’m just saying." (note the phrase, "My tweets," NOT "Me, myself or I." This will come in handy later in my post.)

The tweets continued:

"They say everything’s bigger in Texas … so tomorrow I’m doing my biggest Twitter giveaway ever. Guess where?"

Oct. 20:

"Dallas has a population of 1,279,910. One of those people is going to be very lucky today. Follow my tweets and it could be you!"

"Dallas-ians... Dallas-ites... Those of you who live in Dallas: Stay tuned to my tweets today, I've got something big coming up."

As I worked at my desk yesterday, I had the Twitter page up and was refreshing probably every 10 minutes or so. Why? Because I stalk celebrities, of course. This is my duty as the self-proclaimed "neighborsgo celebrity stalker."

Finally, around 3 p.m., I got some news.

"I like lemons. I also like Lemmon Avenue in Dallas. That's where Sewell GMC is."

I literally jumped out of my seat and ran into my boss' office, only to find his door was closed. He was in a meeting. But I knocked anyway. As he opened the door, I quickly told him that I think Ellen is in Dallas on Lemmon Avenue.

"Can I go?" I said.

He gave me permission, and I raced out of the office like a space rocket.

My GPS said I was six or seven miles away, and while I impatiently drove through town, thoughts of how the next hour would go played out in my head.

My thought process went a little something like this: "Oh, I'm gonna totally get a picture with Ellen and finally get to tell her I was hurt and offended she never even personally introduced herself to me or any of the other interns who worked for her the semester of January through April/May 2008."

Boy, did I have high hopes -- only to be let down once again.

The Ellen Show was indeed at Sewell GMC, but not Ellen. Some of her crew and Jeannie Klisiewicz, the Ellen fan turned Ellen staff member were here to indeed execute a big Twitter giveaway.

Fans had to pay one dollar (all of which would go to Ellen For The Cure) to get a raffle ticket.

Though at the time no one was sure, it was pretty obvious someone was going to be winning a car. A GMC Terrain to be exact, because one of the cars had an Ellen license plate on it. Duh.

Time passed, and I waited around until 6 p.m. More than 500 Dallasites showed up. Ah, the power of Twitter.

Around that time, they finally starting taping the show cutting in live to Jeannie and us Dallas fools hoping to win the "big prize." I forgot I was working, so I couldn't even win if they did call my raffle number. Double fail.

Jeannie read off 12 raffle tickets, and those final people were still in the running to win the car.

Those happy dozen were given a bag of decorations, and had to come up with the most creative costume possible in 20 minutes. The top five most creative, according to the crew, were the finalists. Then, they all got a key. The person's key that worked got the car. 

And congratulations, Joan Foster, an elementary school teacher from Murphy. 

I never got to lament to Ellen, and my dreams were kind of shattered. I guess all celebrity stalkeries can't end successfully.

The show will air today, Oct. 21 at 3 p.m. central time.

Read fellow Dallas Morning News staffer Debbie Fleck's story on yesterday's events here.