Oprah show to end in 2011; Twin Cities woman remembers Oprah's generosity

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- It is not an overstatement to say this statement was heard around the world.

"I have decided that next season, season 25 is the last season of the Oprah Winfrey show," Winfrey said Friday before her studio audience in Chicago.

Oprah came into our living rooms in 1985. She made us laugh, cry and down right giddy.

But real change, before Obama even uttered the word, will be the legacy of her daytime talk show.

Just ask Tene Wells.

"I was driving to work one day and a voice said send this to Oprah and I did, ten days later I got a phone call."

Wells was President of the non-profit Women Venture at the time. She sent Oprah's producers her idea of taking Minneapolis women out of low income jobs and training them with skills to compete in more lucrative paying careers; but the dream needed funding.

Sixteen days later Tene was given the "Use Your Life" award by Oprah herself, a spot on the show, and $100,000.

"I cried as the picture shows, I just broke down," Tene recalls.

Those moments have happened over the last quarter century to thousands.

Love her or hate her, Oprah changed lives.

She did it for authors, for readers, school girls in Africa, celebrities and for only one presidential hopeful.

But what she did for the minority, of a minority is beyond measure.

"I think the importance of an African American woman that didn't look like she was trying to be a white woman is a major feat,' Tene said.

Transcending color, sex, socioeconomic status; there wasn't a glass ceiling she didn't shatter.

"I could have never imagined the yellow brick road of blessings these moments with you, these years with you," Oprah said in her tearful goodbye. "This show has been my life, and I love it enough to say goodbye."

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