Tickets available for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition premier party Feb. 12

With all the blood, sweat and tears of an intense week-long home renovation behind them, Building Specialists, Inc. (BSI) and Virginia Tech are ready to celebrate with the community at an “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” air party, being held at Virginia Tech on Sunday, Feb. 12.

During the week of Dec. 5, 2005, BSI and hundreds of local volunteers successfully demolished and rebuilt the home of Blacksburg resident Carol Crawford Smith, all under the constant scrutiny of television cameras, which were there to capture the process for the hit ABC show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” The show will air at 7 p.m. on Feb. 12 as a two-hour special, and will feature the highs and lows of building under extreme conditions.

Virginia Tech is hosting this party in honor of Smith, who served as the first director of the university’s Black Cultural Center. The university is also honoring the outstanding example of commitment to the university’s motto, Ut Prosim (“That I May Serve”), made by faculty and staff from the College of Architecture and Urban Studies who led the collaboration on the design for Smith’s new home. College of Architecture and Urban Studies dean, Paul L. Knox, asked Joe Wheeler, assistant professor of architecture, to head the project with Robert Dunay, T. A. Carter Professor of Architecture and director of the industrial design program. These professors worked with a group of outstanding architecture students and Amanda McCreary, a recent College of Architecture and Urban Studies graduate and now the head designer at BSI. BSI and the architecture team worked with Yvan Beliveau, department head of building construction; Mike O’Brien, building construction professor; Brian Kleiner, director of the Center for Innovation in Construction Safety and Health; and Ben Johnson, landscape architecture professor.

The party celebrates all those who supported the project physically, financially, or even just in spirit. The festivities will begin with a dinner at Owens Hall from 4-7 p.m. From 6-7 p.m., a behind-the-scenes documentary by ABC local affiliate WSET about the Blacksburg extreme home makeover will be shown at Burruss Auditorium, followed at 7 p.m. by the nationwide telecast of the episode on ABC.

Tickets are available for the public to purchase online at www.tickets.vt.edu or www.tickets.com, by phone at 800/843-0332, or in person at the UUSA Ticket Office on the first floor of Squires Student Center on the Virginia Tech campus.

Tickets that include both the dinner and screening portions of the evening are $20 for adults and $15 for students.

Screening-only tickets are $5 for both adults and students.

In honor of Carol Crawford Smith, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, a portion of the proceeds will go to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

About ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition-- The design team for this episode of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” will feature team leader Ty Pennington, as well as Paul DiMeo, Preston Sharp, Paige Hemmis, and Daniel Kucan.

“Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” is produced by Endemol USA, a division of Endemol Holding. David Goldberg is the president of Endemol USA. The series is executive-produced by Tom Forman. The show airs Sundays (8-9 p.m. ET), on the ABC Television Network.

About Building Specialists, Inc.-- Building Specialists, Inc. (BSI) is a full-service commercial and residential general contractor, founded by its president, Bob Fetzer, in 1975. Based in Roanoke, Virginia, the company offers complete construction services of additions and renovations, as well as turn-key services for new construction. They also offer a complete design service.

For 30 years, Building Specialists has made its mission to not only construct, but to enhance the built environment and life of the surrounding community—serving, strengthening and assisting clients to carry out their own dreams and aspirations. BSI’s motto, “It's not what we build. It's how,” aptly summarizes this design and construction philosophy, which is reflected in their work across the region. With projects as diverse as Advance Auto Parts, Excel Prosthetics, Blueberry Hill Cottages at Mountain Lake, stately residences throughout the Roanoke Valley, and the beautifully renovated Grandin Theatre, the list of satisfied clients in the region is long and distinguished. For more information on BSI, go to www.bsiva.com.

About Virginia Tech-- Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become the largest university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech's eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 170 academic degree programs. Continuing and Professional Education lifelong learning programs reach another 35,000 people per year.