BUNKER HILL — A new home, courtesy of ABC-TV reality show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and hundreds of volunteers, wasn’t the last gift the Cowan-Brown family received this week.

Ball State University has offered Heather and Andy Cowan’s four children — Kori Brown, 12, Ryan Brown, 16, Trevor Brown, 13, and Mason Cowan, 8 — special scholarships for four years of full tuition, university spokesman Tony Proudfoot announced during a press conference Wednesday.

“Ball State could not be more delighted to be a part of this effort,” Proudfoot said.

The children must apply and be admitted to be eligible for the scholarship.

“So can you say ‘Go Cardinals?’” he said to the children.

The scholarships were one of two gifts the family received during Wednesday’s press conference in the front yard of the family’s new, approximately 3,500-square-foot, rural Miami County home.

Additionally, administrators from the Maconaquah School Corp. presented Kori Brown with a check for $2,478 for the American Cancer Society.

Craig Jernagan, Maconaquah Middle School’s principal, said the corporation had a one-day drive to raise the money. It has donated all the money in Kori’s honor, he said.

“I feel like we’re going to be saying ‘Thank you’ the rest of our lives,” Heather Cowan said during the press conference.

ABC selected the family mainly because of Kori, who has a congenital blood disorder. During her trips to Riley Hospital for Children, she befriended a girl with cancer. Since then, Kori has raised more than $35,000 for the American Cancer Society in her friend’s honor.

The family finished filming interviews for “Extreme Makeover” off-site Wednesday while the show’s remaining crews spent the day clearing the area on 100 West in Miami County. Security personnel closed the area to the general public.

The show filmed its grand finale scene Tuesday when star Ty Pennington and the rest of the cast taped its “Move that bus” segment. Hundreds of fans and volunteers gathered for the moment when the family returned from a vacation at Disneyland, got out of the limo and caught the first glimpse of the home volunteers built for it in less than a week.

The show recruited Anderson-based general contractor Hallmark Homes Inc. to lead the project.

“It’s been an incredible ride from the time we got the phone call a little over five weeks ago to the ‘Move that bus’ yesterday,” company president Paul Schwinghammer said during Wednesday’s press conference. “... It was a 150-percent effort. We had some tough conditions to work through, and I think it made us stronger.”

Although the company’s executives were happy with the outcome, Schwinghammer doubted that he would want to lead another “Extreme Makeover” project, should the opportunity arise again. That is mainly because volunteers were working shifts upward of 20 hours a day to finish on time, he said.

“We like helping families,” he said. “We’d have to look long and hard at our workers and the stresses. I’d have to say not at this point. ... We’d be happy to help another builder.”

For the Hallmark Home employees and the Cowan-Brown family, life can get back to normal now that filming is over.

“This starts our new normal,” Heather Cowan said. “This going to free up so much time and energy.”

The Cowans said after the press conference the show kept all the family members busy while they were in Disneyland, but they eagerly awaited seeing their new home.

“It’s like Christmas,” Andy Cowan said. “You want to know what’s in that box, but you want to be surprised.”

Heather Cowan said the family did not feel nervous until they got into the limousine that took them home for the filming of the “Move that bus” scene.

“We have felt almost every emotion in the last seven days,” she said.

• Daniel Human is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He can be reached at 765-454-8570 or at daniel.human@kokomotribune.com.