Most people just daydream about meeting their favorite actors or singers. They never in a million years think they’ll actually realize their dream.

For Cullman’s Oakleigh White, the dream came to fruition not once, but twice.

The first time she met Taylor Swift, Oakley was thirteen, in the seventh grade and star struck. She and a friend won a contest. The prize was getting to meet Swift after a concert. Then and there both girls became “Swifties.”

More recently, Oakleigh, now 18, and still a huge Taylor Swift fan, won an essay contest. The prize? Getting to meet Swift — again.

“I saw an entry on Facebook about entering a contest to be on her live stream in New York City. I asked my mother that if I won would she take me to New York. She just said ‘Oh, sure,’” recalled Ashley.

Sure enough, within a few days, the news came from Swift’s office that Oakleigh’s essay, which was one of 5,000, had been chosen. She would have the chance to attend a live stream with Taylor Swift.

Thinking that it might be a scam, Oakleigh’s mother, Kristy White, checked it out and discovered that it was, indeed, from Swift’s organization.

They called and got instructions. The main thing, which turned out to be the hardest, was that they couldn’t tell anyone. Not even Oakleigh’s best friend or her brother. “They made it clear that if it got out on social media we would be disqualified,” Oakleigh explained.

White, who teaches at West Elementary, had been preparing for her upcoming classes, but she dropped everything she was doing and started packing. At 10:30 p.m. on a Friday night she called her sister, Ashley Lamar, and told her, “It’s okay, everyone is all right, but we are going to New York City in the morning and we need you to drive. It’s a secret and you can’t tell anyone.”

Lamar was already asleep when the call came. She was confused and couldn’t understand why this had to be such a secret, but she agreed to go along with it, intrigue and all.

Too late for a flight, they all packed in a hurry. “I threw the basics in a suitcase and when I got there it was hysterical — my clothes didn’t even match,” laughed Ashley.

“Honestly, we all still thought that it could be a scam. The secrecy, the fact that they had already warned us that Oakleigh would not be able to take her phone or a camera into the studio, and other things just concerned us,” said Lamar. “We had already made up our minds that we were going to take pictures of the people who came to take her to the studio in order to describe them if something happened.”

The group arrived in New York City in time to see the famous metropolis all lit up from one side of the horizon to the other. “We even got to see the lights on top of the Empire State Building,” said Oakleigh.

This was the first trip to the “Big Apple” for all of them, including Oakleigh’s grandmother, Mary Dean Lamar. They checked into the Times Square Westin and ventured out into the night. Only, according to Lamar and Oakleigh, it was as bright as day. “You couldn’t even tell that it was nighttime,” said Oakleigh.

Oakleigh was excited and not a bit daunted by the city or the crowds.

Stores were still open on Saturday morning until 4 a.m., so they did a little bit of shopping. Although Oakleigh says that she had brought “tons” of clothes, she began to stress over her choices, so she bought an outfit to wear to the live stream at H&N.

That night and the next day they visited all of the “touristy” things like Times Square, Rockefeller Center and Central Park, where they found the fountain from the opening scene of the show, “Friends”. “We also walked through the Garment District, went to the Empire State Building and shopped at the big Macy’s,” Oakleigh said. Their tour also included a cruise up the Hudson River to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

As they floated down the river, looking at the penthouse apartments and skyscrapers, Lamar asked, “I wonder where Taylor Swift lives? Wouldn’t it be something if you could go to her apartment?” They all laughed.

Around noon Monday, it was time for Oakleigh’s big moment. She had to leave her camera and phone behind with her family as she joined the other 88 people who were chosen to attend the live stream. Her mom watched as Oakleigh was swallowed up in the group of young people. She would not see her daughter again for several hours.

There was a lot of security for the event and the adults began to feel a little safer. They also heard something on television about Swift’s live stream with guests, so they relaxed a little more.

Meanwhile, Oakleigh quickly got acquainted with her fellow “Swifties” who came from all over the country, as far away as Utah and Arizona, with Kentucky, North Carolina and other Southern states represented, as well as some locals from New Jersey.

They were put together in a room at the Broadway Millennium Hotel from 2 to 4:30 p.m. where they spent time chatting about their mutual interest: Taylor Swift.

Later they were split up into six subgroups and walked across the street to the ABC Studio. As they entered the elevator, they came face-to-face with Perez Hilton from perezhilton.com, a celebrity gossip site.

At 18, the minimum age eligible to enter this contest, Oakleigh was one of the youngest of the group. Some were schoolteachers in their mid-twenties. All had to pay their own expenses for this event. Oakleigh and her family had driven the greatest distance. Others flew from the Midwest.

Finally they were ushered into an elevator and taken to the studio where the live stream originated. Finally, they met their hostess, dressed in a white skirt and a crop top with cut-out designs on the hem of each.

“She looked exactly the same as she does on television,” Oakleigh commented. “She told us and the television audience that she had three big announcements to make.”

One, she was releasing a new single called “Shake It Off”. The audience spontaneously began to stand up and dance around on the set. Then Swift did a Q&A with the audience, people on the phone, Facebook and Instagram.

The second announcement was that she was releasing her fifth album, titled “1989”. The third announcement revealed that there would be a video release for “Shake It Off”.

“One of her (Swift’s) favorite things is to dance and sing along with friends after the show. She asked them to hold on while she did a live interview with Good Morning, America. Then, she asked if they liked pizza.

After the live stream was over, they loaded onto a bus, thinking that maybe they were going to her favorite pizza parlor. But the bus headed toward Tribeca. Back at their various hotels, the families had no clue where their children were being taken…

The big bus pulled carefully up to an apartment. Some people caught on right away. “This is her apartment, she is taking us to her apartment!” they shouted. “Some of them were actually crying,” Oakleigh recalled.

The 89 excited Swifties crowded into the elevators and were transported into the world of Taylor Swift. They formed a line in her foyer, and slowly began to inch forward. “I wondered what was taking so long,” said Oakleigh. “But when I got closer I realized that it was taking so long because Taylor was greeting everyone individually and asking them questions about themselves.”

When Oakleigh was two people away from Swift, her song came on the radio. “All of us just started dancing around in the foyer,” laughed Oakleigh.

When her turn came, Oakleigh thanked Swift for the event, for bringing them to her apartment and then told her that she wrote her essay about her best friend Kendall Federer and how they had gotten to know each other because of a Taylor Swift song.

Swift asked Oakleigh what sights she’d seen since coming to NYC, then gave her a brief history of the apartment building and of Tribeca.

Oakleigh eventually found herself in the singer’s kitchen. After Swift greeted everyone she went in the kitchen and offered everyone NYC pizza. Another of her songs came on and everyone danced in the light of the refrigerator door.

The visitors got to hold her cat, then posed with Swift in subgroups to make Polaroid snapshots. A big part of her next album will feature Polaroid snapshots. The album will debut October 27.

Other people were walking around in the living room, admiring Swift’s view, her antique furniture, marble counter tops, velvet pillows, various awards and many photographs. “There were a lot of quilts in baskets that her fans had given her, there was even a gift from someone in the group,” said Oakleigh. As each one left, Swift thanked them individually for their support, calling them her “A-Team”. She presented each of them with a gift bag containing two T-shirts, and two tank tops from Port Authority, screen printed with the name of her new single and album.

Back on the bus, everyone agreed that it had been like a dream. They got off grinning and laughing, greeting their families with the news.

Her mother knew at that moment that all of the rush, the expense and the tension had been worth it. “The look on her face was just priceless,” said White.

And then the Tweeting and texting and Facebooking commenced…Oakleigh had her photo made with a hand-lettered sign saying “I’m sorry I lied to you!” which she sent to her Kendall, who was with her when she met Taylor Swift for the first time.

It was Kendall who was the subject of the essay which got Oakleigh to NYC:

“In the sixth grade I met my best friend over an obsession with Taylor’s No. 1 single “Love Story”. We stood up on the bus and shouted it at the top of our lungs not caring if we annoyed a single person. Today, as seniors in high school, not a thing has changed. We blare it from our cars, tweet till our friends text us to stop, and karaoke, until we lose our voice. Taylor’s music is special because it’s more than music. It’s words put together perfectly to draw people closer together.”