HAWAI'I'S BACHELOR
10 men in search of true love

He's a pharmacist who likes to sew and strum his 'ukulele.	This finalist claims "yuppie-haole- beach-bumesque" fashion sense.	Friends say this engineer makes the girls swoon.	This nursing student once crocheted a gift for a woman.
This former calendar pin-up model saves lives.	Colleagues say he's the kind of guy you'd want your daughter to date.	He's a worldly sort who claims he's a little geeky and likes to bake.	This Big Island teacher is willing to travel to O'ahu to find true love.
	His grandmother wants him to be Hawai'i's Bachelor.	He's a skater boy who owns his own skateboard shop.

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

What's next on Hawai'i's Bachelor? We'll announce the three finalists next week. Then readers will vote again online. The last man standing will be Hawai'i's Bachelor. We're still accepting applications for women who want to date Hawai'i's Bachelor. Single women who live in Hawai'i and are 21 or older can get in on the game by applying on our Web site. The dating game will start with our bachelor going to dinner with all 10 women. Readers can e-mail advice to help the bachelor narrow down his choices. The dates will begin the first weekend in April. We'll be writing about what happens. Daters will keep online journals, and readers can vote for the contestants they want to stay in the game.

They said our questions were too hard and our photo studio was too hot. But they smiled and put on their game faces to get your votes.

Voting begins today to decide who will be Hawai'i's Bachelor in our dating game that brings reality to your doorstep.

The choices for the man to be put in the dating spotlight range from a 23-year-old nursing student who likes women with "dorky" traits, to a 33-year-old pharmacist who says he's not romantic, to a 45-year-old Big Island teacher who brought a book of love poems to his interview at The Advertiser.

We called in 15 finalists from about 150 men who applied to be Hawai'i's Bachelor. We grilled them with questions and called their references. Even their exes were kind.

"He just did a lot of cute little unexpected things," Stacey Arashiro said of Ken Lee, the firefighter she dated for five years. "He'd put candles out or give a massage at the end of the date."

Some are reluctant bachelors.

Jeff Lee twisted best friend Cory Mitsui's arm to get him to apply.

"He's almost like a superhero," Jeff Lee gushed about the financial planner he's known since kindergarten. "You know, he can't fly, but he a lways does the right thing."

Casey Hewes also had a friend giving him the push.

"I said he'd be perfect for it," Aric Larsen said of Hewes, a 23-year-old nursing student. "I don't think everybody's cut out to go on dates with 10 women.

I think he's a laid-back enough individual to make it fun for everybody."

Kelly Komoda's grandmother urged him to enter. She saw something about it in the newspaper, cut it out, and told the fourth-grade Jefferson Elementary teacher she was ready for him to meet his match.

Skateboard-shop owner Chuck Mitsui joked with his friends about applying. Then the joke turned real, and he became the lone shaggy-haired skateboarder on our bachelor panel.

Mitsui never thought he'd get this far, and he sweated out questions even after we had technical difficulties with a microphone. (He's a problem-solver. He tried to fix it.)

Erik Snyder sent in a picture of himself with his 2-year-old son with his application. The never-married civil engineer who grew up on Maui is looking for a Mrs. S.

"He's real level-headed," friend and former co-worker Eric Steinke said. "He's got a good job. He's single. He's pretty generous, real mellow, really humble, pretty much a go-getter."

A few bachelor wannabes are readymade self-promoters.

Big Island teacher Russell Cummins is so set on finding a match that he's willing to fly to O'ahu as often as it takes to play the game.

"If Cupid finds us with his heart-filled arrows, we fall in love, get married, she may have to relocate to the Big Island," he wrote. Call him sappy or call him sweet. He is the poetry man.

Some of our finalists hail from high schools most Islanders won't recognize. Among them is Derek Chinners, a sales engineer from Houston who moved to Hawai'i seven months ago. What better way to meet 10 women right off the bat?

Chinners said he doesn't know a lot about what makes women tick, so this is his chance to find out.

Bryan Langley was raised in Chicago. The University of Hawai'i grad wants to meet an intelligent woman he can talk to about what's going on in the world.

The biggest thing going for Langley could be that he kept his composure through the longest of the bachelor interviews with questions like: "What do you think about breast implants?" and "What would you do if you went to meet a girl's parents and they served something you didn't like?" (See his video excerpts at the Advertiser Web site.)

And then there was Jon Wataoka, the only guy who admitted that he's not romantic.

We thought we'd give the 33-year-old pharmacist a chance anyway. The former high school all-star running back must miss attention. When we told him he made the first cut, he said it made his day.

Now it's your chance to make someone's day by making them your vote.

We're leaving the bachelor decision up to readers. Choose your favorite contender, and we'll ask you to vote again next week on the top three.

These are guys with their eyes on the prize: dates. We'll set the winner up on a group date with 10 women and watch as he tries to make love connections. Then we'll write about it. Our bachelor will eliminate contenders as the dates go on.

Readers will get to follow the daters' online diaries and e-mail advice for our bachelor.

To find out all the details, like which finalist asked if there would be a stylist at the photo shoot to fix his hair, check out the Reporter's Notebook. And if you know something about these guys that we should know, e-mail us at the address below.

Feedback: Have a question or comment or want to give advice to Hawai'i's Bachelor finalists? E-mail us at hawaiisbachelor@honoluluadvertiser.com.