Philo - Town leaders are exhaling, since they no longer have to keep the secret the hit show is coming to Philo.
Try keeping a secret in a town where everyone knows eveyone.
That's exactly the challenge one man faced as he was forced to keep his lips sealed so he wouldn't ruin the surprise of a life time.
In the tiny village of Philo keeping secrets isn't easy.
"Everybody knows everybody. Everyone gets in each others business."

"Anytime anythings going on the news gets around pretty quickly."explained Village Trustee Neal Askalund.

But if you have a secret to keep you can confide in this Village President Craig Eckert.
While the show tries to keep their location and lucky family under wraps as much as possible, the show needed certain permits and preperation.

So Craig was tipped off of to the surprise, "at first i thought it was a joke. I thought some one was pulling my leg."

No joke here. In fact, ABC execs warned if the secret was let out the show might have to be pulled.

"I just felt like it was a really important secret to keep. And that's not my nature. I'm not someone that's very good about keeping things to myself. And i felt in this case i had to," said Eckert.

Village Trustee Steve Sappenfield says, "Craig is prolly one of your best ones. Cause Craig believe me; you couldn't get anything out of Craig."

Word inevatbly began to trickle through the streets.
And the questions picked up.
"I went to the Philo Tavern about a week ago and i prolly had 20 people come up to me while i was trying to eat going i heard we're going to be on national tv," said Eckert.

Craig let villagers know there was a family in town who is a finalist and they'd have to wait and see.

Well the waiting game is over and thanks to a well kept secret, a family's life is about to change.

Craig says this secret may not be the only one let out of the bag.
He says people are about to find out what a great town to live in Philo is.
And that kind of blown secret may give the whole town a makeover.





Philo Village President Keeps a Secret