Ready for your close-up, Olney?

City officials are working with a team of TV producer-developers who plan to use Olney as the setting for a “Fixer Upper”-style documentary series about renewing rural towns that would air on a major streaming channel later this year or in early 2024.

“Each season, follow along as we spark revival in these historic Texas towns,” the show’s description says. “We will work with local leadership to learn the biggest issues facing their communities. After that, it’s time to get our hands dirty, working together to create lasting solutions to solve the biggest problems facing small-town Texas.”

Producer Lance Groves and his brother Corey Groves initially wanted to shoot the show in their native Possum Kingdom, until a chance meeting at the Young County Courthouse in December between Lance Groves and Judge Win Graham pointed them to Olney. The Groves’ cousin, Russell Wayne Groves, who produced the 2022 Netflix documentary “Facing Nolan,” also helped devel- op the project.

Judge Graham pointed out that the City of Olney has about 20 foreclosed lots that it was willing to sell cheaply to buyers who would build homes within a year of purchase. Judge Graham introduced the Groves to Olney Mayor Rue Rogers and Mayor Pro Tem Tom Parker last month.

“Win brought them over to Olney and said, ‘This is where you need to do it,’” Mayor Rogers said. “The need for housing is one of our biggest needs and so after having lunch and discussing it more in detail … Tom took them around and showed them some of the lots.”

Lance Groves, whose family has operated the mechanical contracting company Groves PK at Possum Kingdom since 1966, said he and his brother plan to shoot in towns all over Texas, adding “it sure is a nice feeling to be starting in our own backyard.”

“I can say that if not for Young County Judge Win Graham getting us in front of Tom Parker and Rue Rogers, we would have missed the opportunity to highlight such a deserving town,” he said. “Young County is better because of those three guys. We look forward to the work we will be doing in all the towns to be featured in this series.”

Mr. Groves said filming and construction are set to begin by late spring and will focus on vacant lots on city blocks north of Main Street. The series will be called “Rural Route Revival” and will focus on the brothers’ bet on revitalizing small-town Texas rather than adding to the Metroplex’s sprawl, he said.

“Just as it looks like small-town Texas might be forever forgotten, 90 miles west of the Dallas toll roads along the east banks of Possum Kingdom Lake is a group with a different development play in mind,” he said.

“It’s a dark-horse bet on blue-collar communities.”