Like everybody else in this area, Entertainment Fort Smith’s staff was excited and thrilled when we learned that ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was coming here to build Colleen Nick a new home in Alma, Ark. last month. And, like the thousands of area volunteers and spectators who streamed into Alma while the home was being built, we can’t wait to see the special, two-hour reveal on ABC’s local affiliate Channel 40/29 KHBS/KHOG.

We are big fans of the show. Every month during our press deadline weekend, when Lynn Wasson, Donna Payne and I are working like crazy on a Sunday night, Extreme Home Makeover provides the one bright spot to our drudgery.

This is how it usually happens. I’m writing in my office at the front of the building when Donna buzzes me on the intercom from the production office. “It’s on,” Donna says, and I hurry back to where she and Lynn are writing and making pages, and we all take a brief time out to watch the beginning of the show. During commercials I return to my office until Donna buzzes me the last time. “It’s time to cry,” she says. And how can we not, when Ty, Paul, Michael, Constance, Paige, Preston, Tracy and Ed reveal another fabulous new home custom-built for another grateful, deserving family.

But when we watch the show this month, WE – all of us in this area – will actually know at least one person – or more – who helped make Colleen Nick’s new home a reality. Local homebuilder heroes leading the construction of the home included Emily Rucker, Steven Spradlin and Steve Rucker, all members of the Greater Fort Smith Area of Home Builders; Northwest Arkansas Home Builders Association members Dan Ferguson, Daniel Cowin, Eric Farmer and Virgil Knight; and architect Steve Butcher of PB2 in Rogers.

It was a “once in a lifetime opportunity,” Emily, Steven and Steve told us, a few days after they and literally a crew of thousands of construction professionals and volunteers they oversaw had finished the house in 103 hours – three hours under the show’s allotted deadline. You can bet there were lots of tears in thousands of eyes at the site when the throng of volunteers, builders and well-wishers stood in front of Colleen’s new house as she and son Logan and daughter Taryn waited for Ty and the crowd to yell, “Move that bus!” so the family could get their first look at their new home.

Prayers are now being redoubled in this area, and hopefully across the nation -- once this story airs – for the Nick family’s missing daughter and sister, Morgan Nick, to be able to join them in their new home. Colleen has never given up that Morgan, who was 6 when she disappeared from an Alma ball field 10 years ago last month, will somehow, someday, find her way back to her family’s waiting and open arms.

Here are a just a few photos sent us by dozens of our readers who experienced the June 9-16 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team’s visit to our area. Don’t forget to tune in for the show. And please help Colleen pray for Morgan to safely come home.

 

Linda Seubold, editor of Entertainment Fort Smith Magazine, can be reached at lindaseubold@efortsmith.com. Read her archived columns and articles online.

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