Bigelow family picked for makeover of home
Posted on Friday, August 15, 2008
BIGELOW — Producers for the reality television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition told the family of a sick 10-yearold boy in Bigelow on Thursday that thousands of volunteers would demolish their mold-infested home and build them a new one — all within the next seven days.
“It’s just overwhelming, incredible,” said Rob McCully, the father of Job, a boy who has survived leukemia, and bone-marrow and double-lung transplants over the past few years.
Job was released from a hospital in St. Louis in March after more than a year, but returned last week for treatments for a viral infection, cytomegalovirus, according to an online journal that the family keeps at www. caringbridge. org / ar / job. He was released Wednesday.
Celebrity host Ty Pennington knocked on their door a little after 10 a. m. Thursday to tell them they were chosen for the extreme makeover. The show, which is in its sixth season on ABC, travels around the country building dream homes in a week for families it believes are deserving.
Producers for the show arrived early and told the family members that they had a 1-in-5 chance of being chosen, and that producers were with four other families across the state, family members said. Job and his 13-year-old sister, Nicole, played the video game Guitar Hero with the producers while they waited. “I was sitting there and 10 o’clock came and went,” said Job’s grandmother, Glenda Osborne. “I thought ‘ oh my gosh, maybe we didn’t get picked. ’” Interviews and photographs of the family were tightly managed by film crews Thursday and were limited to a brief press conference. During the press briefing, Job, who is in a wheelchair, stared into the eyes of the contractor in charge of the new home’s construction. The boy didn’t say a word but grabbed the builder’s hand tightly. The new 3, 200-square-foot brick home will be one story and have four bedrooms. It will replace the 1, 872-square-foot home the family has owned since 2003, according to the builder, Jack Wilson of Woodhaven Homes Inc. in Sherwood, and property records from the Perry County assessor’s office. The McCullys paid about $ 30, 000 for the house and 17 acres, according to the records. The family has not lived in the house since Job returned from the hospital in March because of leaks in the roof and mildew in the walls. Instead, they’ve been renting a house nearby, McCully said. McCully, a deacon at the Bigelow Assembly of God Church, said the family’s name was submitted to the television show by community members. The McCully Family episode will air during the 2008-09 season, according to press materials. An exact date wasn’t given.
The show also has built two other houses for families in Arkansas.
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