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Movies & Television

Former BYU student takes on role of "Mormon Bachelor"

While a new season of ABC’s wildly popular TV series “The Bachelorette” is well underway, one former BYU student is readying himself to fill the roll of the next “Mormon Bachelor.'

Kent Tuttle, a dental student living in Phoenix, Ariz., is set to embark on a unique journey to find love on the online dating show, “The Mormon Bachelor.”

“I decided to do the Mormon Bachelor because it’s really just the right time in my life for me to put myself out there, as far as seriously dating goes,” said 27-year-old Tuttle. “I’m so isolated in Arizona, and obviously what I had been doing in the past wasn’t working, so (given the opportunity) to try something new, I said, why not?”

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The show, which is in its fourth season, has already garnered the attention of several major national media outlets, including Good Morning America and E! News.

“Our statistics are already well above where they were before, so I expect this season to be at least three or four times bigger than in the past,” executive producer Erin Elton said. Elton started the show with some friends in September 2010 with “The Mormon Bachelorette,” a season that yielded a temple marriage. “I almost feel like we’re on a media tour and we didn’t even plan it.”

Forty-four men applied to be the Mormon Bachelor, including two LDS missionaries currently serving in Kenya. After Tuttle was selected, over 400 applications came pouring in from women around the country vying for a chance to date the former BYU volleyball player.

“When you’re at BYU you’re in an ocean of beautiful and successful people everywhere you go,” Tuttle recalls. “But what happens is, when you get your heart broken, you turn a little bit cynical, and my heart wasn’t in the right place. I just thought, well I’m just going to date for fun for a little while, which I think a lot of people do.”

Tuttle said he feels there is a general mentality in Provo to get distracted or date just for fun, which causes people to lose sight of what dating is really about. “It isn’t the right way to go about it at all,” he said.

“I had to come to a point where my heart was ready to seriously again date, and consider a long-term commitment,” Tuttle said. “I’m ready to move on to the next stage of my life … meeting someone that is easy to love and just getting right down to it.”

The Mormon Bachelor airs online at www.themormonbachelorette.com on July 5th, 2012.