Jerri Zimmerman couldn't believe the words coming out of her television.

Almost every day, the York City woman tunes in to CBS for a familiar dose of an old-fashioned game show. The iconic program challenges contestants to guess the price of everything from laundry detergent to exotic cruises - which, sometimes, they win.

But, on Wednesday, the grand prize caught Zimmerman off guard. She'd never heard this before.

If she hadn't guessed so high, a woman on the program would have won a motorcycle-themed arcade game, a Harley-Davidson Sportster motorcycle and an expenses-paid trip to York - where she would have been treated to a tour of the Harley factory in Springettsbury Township.

"I'm like, 'Wow, that's really funny,'" Zimmerman said. "I'm like, 'York?'"

Shortly afterward, Zimmerman logged on to Facebook to share the news. Reactions from friends ranged from the cheerfully sarcastic to the slightly defensive.

"Did they lose on purpose?" one person asked, followed by a good-natured "lol."

Another wrote: "Contrary to a lot of people's beliefs, York is stepping up in a lot of areas."

Zimmerman sure wasn't making it up.

Wednesday's episode - which originally aired in May - was a motorcycle-themed show.

But why not send the winner to a Harley-Davidson factory in Kansas City, Mo. or Tomahawk, Wis.? Why York?

"Isn't it the best one?" countered Paul Gendreau, a publicist for the show.

Now in its 40th season, "The Price Is Right" is trying to reach "beyond what we've done in the past," Gendreau said.

"This is part of that," he said. "Sometimes it's small places. Sometimes it's big places. You can't ever say you're not going to do Rome, Paris or Venice. But, sure, we're open."

That's just fine with the folks at the York County Convention and Visitors Bureau, which promotes the "Factory Tour Capital of the World" as a tourist destination.

"That's really cool," said spokeswoman Allison Freeman. "It gives us a little bit of traction to say that York was featured on a really big show like The Price Is Right."

The bureau regularly uses the Harley-Davidson factory as a way to draw people to the area, she said.

"It's also our job after that to say, 'OK, you're here for Harley, but there's a lot of other stuff going on in York,'" Freeman said.

Gendreau said he doesn't know if or when York might return to The Price Is Right stage.

But Zimmerman said she plans to send a letter asking producers to keep York as a destination in the prize rotation.

"I thought it was cool," she said. "We're moving on up."

- Erin James may also be reached at ejames@yorkdispatch.com.