Ducks @ Oregon - University of Oregon

The Ellen DeGeneres Show comes to Eugene!

Keri S.

September 30, 2009 - 9:58 PM

Yesterday was a very exciting day here at the University of Oregon. Besides being the first day of classes, the Ellen DeGeneres Show made a guest appearance on campus! Clues were given out via Twitter about a scavenger hunt that would appear here in Eugene.

The day started out as any other day. I headed to my first class of the day, Decision Sciences 340. I sat down by my friend Tonya, who looked at me and said "If I leave class right now, you better follow me. We have to get on the Ellen DeGeneres show!" After a little confusion and clarification, I learned Ellen had posted 2 updates on Twitter aimed at the University of Oregon. She first told students: "Attention Oregon Ducks: ‘Quack. Quack. Quack-quack quack.' I'll translate: Start following my tweets now, you'll be glad you did". A while later, she tweeted "U of Oregon: Do I have a surprise for you? Hail, yes. Grab an umbrella and keep watching my Tweets".

Class came and went, and we still had no update from Ellen. Every time I looked over at Tonya, she was refreshing her Twitter home page on her Blackberry looking for the next clue. After Sports Business 450, my second and last class of the day was over. We decided to go to Starbucks and caffeinate up in order to prepare for our Ellen adventure. Before we ordered our drinks, we heard from another friend that there was a huge crowd in front of the EMU. We decided to ditch the coffee and investigate. Sure enough, to our pleasant surprise, we found Ellen's camera crew and Aaron, her on-location host.

As we stood in the crowd of students in anticipation, my group of friends grew to 5 and we all were constantly checking out phones to see what was next. We stood there anxiously, and received warning from her crew that a Twitter update would be sent within the next 10 minutes. Before we knew it, the crowd of students and community members began frantically running in all directions. We received the tweet, saying "People of Eugene-Go to the EMU now. The first 10 people to give Aaron a bar of soap get a Samsung Jack phone and could win even more".

Without thinking, we all sprinted to the dorms nearby. All four of us had been Resident Assistants together, and thought our best strategy would be to find freshman who would loan us a bar of soap. We met up with a current RA, who loaned us 2 bars of soap, and found 1 random freshman who loaned us another. Thanks again Suzie and Spencer of 4th floor Carson Hall.

With soap in hand, we all sprinted back to the EMU to proudly return our soap and claim our rightful prize. Unfortunately we were too late and 10 people had already beaten us there.

We stuck around and watched the rest of the competition, and got to hear Ellen talk to all of us.

If I may put my business student hat on for a second, I would like to point out how Ellen created a segment of her TV show using nothing but social media. Using 3 simple Tweets, she had hundreds of people running around Eugene frantically looking for a bar of soap. The power of social media never ceases to amaze me! Okay, the business student hat is coming off for now, but I am sure you will see that again soon in future blogs.

All and all, I had a truly unique and unforgettable first day of school. It's not every day Eugene, Oregon and the University of Oregon gets nationwide exposure-as silly as it may be.

Here is a link to the Ellen DeGeneres clips, which aired today: