Millions of viewers across the country will say goodbye to their wildest dreams, favorite things, and books they never knew they should read when the Oprah Winfrey Show goes dark Wednesday.
It is the official end of an O era.
"I will die," said Allyson Greenfield, the Buckhead-based director of operations for the Fur Bus party bus. "A lot of people got bored with her, but I didn't. I am totally obsessed with her. When I was younger, I wanted to be Oprah."
Like many die-hard Oprah fans, Greenfield has carved out 4 p.m. to stop whatever she is doing and plunk down in front of the television for a dose of Winfrey. "I've been watching her my whole life," said Greenfield, 35. "I've seen every single episode. As soon as she comes on, I cry."
Winfrey's passion is what many viewers say they will miss with the end of her daytime show on network television. Though she seems equally as passionate about her next venture -- Winfrey launched the Oprah Winfrey Network on cable television in January -- somehow, it just isn't the same, said fans. Locally, Channel 2 Action News will take over the 4 p.m. time slot, while some markets plan to insert "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" or "Dr. Oz."
In Atlanta, the countdown to goodbye has been filled with reflective moments. Some locals have been direct beneficiaries of the Oprah Effect, a media term for Winfrey's Midas touch, while others have overcome personal tragedies by following lessons from the show.
Winfrey's history in the state is legend. In 1987, she taped a show on race relations in Forsyth County. Twenty years later, she showed up in Macon to tape her Favorite Things giveaway show. In 2009, two students at Georgia Tech got a dorm room makeover from Oprah-approved organization expert, Peter Walsh.
And for more than two decades, Winfrey has endowed a scholarship at Morehouse College helping 415 men -- 300 of whom appeared on Tuesday's surprise show -- obtain a higher education. During her first visit to the campus in 1989 to accept an honorary degree, Winfrey wrote a $1 million personal check, said Morehouse media relations manager, Elise Durham. Winfrey followed with subsequent donations -- a total of $12 million -- to the Oprah Winfrey Endowed Scholarship Fund.
When scholarship recipients learned that producers were having them on the show, they decided to take action. In two months, they raised $380,000 on their own, in what they call the "Sons of Oprah" campaign. "They started their own effort as a way to really thank her and keep it going," Durham said. "They received so much help, but they, in turn, now want to help those coming behind."
Winfrey's pay-it-forward spirit has reached well beyond the realm of education. Since 2005, when Atlanta-based Susan Nethero, founder of Intimacy, got a business boost from an appearance on Oprah, she has spread the O love.
"I wouldn't say it has been anything short of breathtaking for us," Nethero said. The Chicago native had always wanted to be on the Oprah Winfrey show and had tried many times to reach show producers. "I knew [Oprah] struggled from bra fit and figure issues as she talked about it in public," Nethero said. Initially, Nethero traveled to Chicago for almost a week lugging some 1,500 bras in suitcases for a scheduled appearance with Trinny and Susannah from the U.K.'s "What Not to Wear," but Winfrey saw a larger story, Nethero said.
"She believed in us and saw what we were doing and was so spellbound by it ... that we had return visits so many times," she said. A total of five. Intimacy revenues doubled after the first show aired, Nethero said, and since 2005 the company has gone from two to 16 stores and quadruple the revenue. But Nethero is quick to point out that she hasn't been the only retailer to benefit. "The industry grew by $700 million in bra sales alone," Nethero said. And the Intimacy website still lists contact information for intimates boutiques in areas that don't have an Intimacy store nearby.
That kind of exposure for ideas or causes is what many locals lament about Winfrey's departure from her syndicated show.
Jake Rothschild, 48, executive director of Irwin Street Community Kitchen and founder of Jake's Ice Cream, realizes he is in the minority as an Oprah-loving man.
"I have never been embarrassed to tell people I watch. I am very much in awe of what she has done for our country," he said.
Rothschild had hoped to make it to her stage to talk about his business incubator that helps launch small food businesses. "I just thought she would love our story," said Rothschild who is just a few degrees of separated from Winfrey via friends, but opted not to pull that card.
And speaking of cards, the husband of radio personality Vikki Locke, had a long-term card campaign to connect Winfrey and his wife. "This past Christmas he said, ‘I have something to tell you. I have a secret I have been keeping from you for the past 18 years,'" Locke said. Turns out, he had been writing to Oprah each year during the holidays, asking her to call his wife.
"She is the only person I haven't interviewed," Locke said, who admires her realness and honesty as a celebrity. "She wanted to make a difference, which is everything I wanted to do. I am the white, radio version of Oprah."
Once Locke had the chance to be a guest on a show about finding Mr. Right, but when producers asked if she was single, Locke couldn't lie. "I said WWOD [what would Oprah do]? She would want me to be honest," Locke said.
Two years ago, when Myra McElhaney, 53, of Alpharetta, was caring for her late husband who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor, it was an episode of Oprah that proved particularly poignant and helpful.
McElhaney, a writer, recalled when a brain scientist who had written a book about having a stroke, appeared on the show. "I read that book and when my husband was diagnosed ... he had some similarities in the way his brain malfunctioned," McElhaney said. "Because of what I had read and seen on Oprah, I understood the importance of just crawling into the hospital bed with him and holding him. It gave me a sense of comfort and understanding," she said.
The self-described self-help junkie said losing Oprah, is like losing another friend. "It's almost like an addiction," McElhaney said. "I'll have to find something to fill that void. It's like a friend moving away. I know she is out there somewhere, but she won't be in my living room at 4 p.m. every day."
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