Belgrade family stars on Fox reality television

By BETH SLOVIC, Chronicle Staff Writer

BELGRADE -- For one week in August the Crow family had a new mother, a motivational speaker from Tacoma, Wash., and Cardinal Drive here was the setting for a reality television program that airs Friday night.

The results of the weeklong experiment will be apparent to anyone who tunes into the Fox network at 7 p.m., when Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy hits the small screen. Part two airs the following week at the same time.

"She didn't really motivate us to do anything," Chad Crow, 12, said Thursday.

"She couldn't even cook," Hayley Crow, Chad's 9-year-old sister, quickly added.

The "she" the kids referred to was Silvana Clark, a Washington author, entrepreneur and public speaker, whose husband and daughter hosted Chad and Hayley's mother, Christina Crow, for one week, too.

Christina and her husband, Dave Crow, are bail bondsmen with Valley Bail Bonds.

They enjoy sports such as baseball and football, and Dave hunts.

"We're not your stereotypical bounty hunters," Dave said. "We're a normal, everyday family."

The Clarks, on the other hand, are "intellectuals," according to Christina. They attend museums, and Silvana is a vegetarian. She introduced the Crow children to tofu, but they did not like it. She made rules, and she talked incessantly, the kids said.

"From the time she got here, she never shut up," Brian Crow, 16, said.

In Washington, Silvana's husband and 15-year-old daughter took Christina to a mega-church, where 3,500 people watched the sermon on giant television screens above the altar. They also took her to museums.

In Montana, the Crows hosted a barbecue and Silvana, "a wannabe Martha Stewart," tried to make it festive, Dave said.

She called all the guests, including several detention officers from the Gallatin County Detention Center, and told them to wear their favorite T-shirts.

But when several guests showed up with lewd messages on their chests, she was surprised and possibly offended. The Crow family, in turn, was delighted.

All of these scenarios were caught on videotape. But the Crows still do not know what portion of their experiences will be included in the programs. On Friday night, they are hosting a party to watch the show with their friends.

What viewers certainly will not see is what happened behind the scenes, which the Crows found completely fascinating.

A total of 60 people worked in Belgrade on the production, including four Montana State University film students who were hired as assistants on the set.

Everything in the Crow's kitchen that had a brand name on it had to have a sticker to cover the logo.

Artwork on the walls had to be taken down if Fox could not secure copyright permission for the work.

And the family members' cell phones were taken away, their Internet was disconnected and they were greeted every morning bright and early by camera crews.

Still, the whole thing managed to be fun for the Crows, they said.

"It was an experience," Chad said.

Beth Slovic is at beth@dailychronicle.com