HUMBOLDT - The video playing on national television showed Cheryl Spare and Lisa Stawick peering into a computer, but the audio was mostly shrieks and laughs when the two women realized they were chatting with talk show host Ellen DeGeneres.
DeGeneres offered to fly her two fans from Hazleton to Los Angeles to sit in the audience for her television show.
"We'll dance. We'll play games. Whatever. Maybe we'll have a drink. I'm not sure. I'll have a drink," DeGeneres said when springing the surprise in a segment broadcast Friday.
Late Thursday afternoon, Spare and Stawick thought they were gathering for a team-building exercise with co-workers. Only their supervisors at the Forbo Flooring plant in the Humboldt Industrial Park knew otherwise.
A computer set to the Internet site Skype let the women see and talk to DeGeneres.
DeGeneres asked to see the picture of herself that Stawick tacked above her desk.
"I didn't know it was stuck on a bulletin board. If you're one of my biggest fans, you need to have a bigger picture. Don't you think?" DeGeneres said.
Then Jeannie Klisewicz, a traveling assistant for the show, carried in a 5-foot picture of Ellen in a gilt frame.
Stawick and Spare plan to hang the picture in the customer service office at Forbo. On Friday, the picture stood next to a block of flooring on which Forbo workers inscribed the logo for DeGeneres's show.
Stawick and Spare expect to fly to Los Angeles for the show in November.
They caught DeGeneres's attention through a video they made when entering a contest to appear on the show.
In the video, also broadcast Friday, the women sit side-by-side.
"We've come to the conclusion that we are your hugest, hugest fans, at least on the East Coast, and we think we should come to your show," Spare said, before adding that they'll dance and play games.
"Maybe have lunch, if you're up to it. Our treat," Stawick chimed in.
The two have watched "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" since it began a decade ago.
Stawick and her husband, Rick, live in Freeland and have three sons, Keith, Mark and Luke. Spare lives with her husband, Scott, in Hazleton and has a daughter, Lauren, and a son, Tom.
Spare and Stawick, however, only met each other last year when they started working together.
"You would think we have know each other our whole lives," Stawick said of their friendship, which "started last March but was our whole lives in the making. Quote me: She loves me, and I love her."
One day at work, Stawick overheard Spare saying to herself "Keep swimming, keep swimming" - a line that DeGeneres's character, Dory, said in the animated movie "Finding Nemo."
"I love Ellen," Stawick replied as they realized they both were fans.
Spare said she admires DeGeneres for taking on social issues such as bullying.
"I think it's a big issue that Ellen is trying to nip in the bud," Spare said.
Stawick said watching Ellen's show gave her hope during the 18-month job search that led to her hiring at Forbo. As DeGeneres talked about the economy, Stawick realized that she wasn't the only person looking for work.
"When I was unemployed she was my reason to get out of bed," Stawick said.