From Colorado’s hottest boater to Cosmo’s Hottest Bachelor. That’s the storyline for Gypsum, Colo.’s Brad Ludden, founder of the First Descent cancer camp for kids. In October, the expedition and freestyle kayaker was nominated as the glamour mag’s hottest bachelor in Colorado, which puts him in the running for the prestigious national title of Cosmo’s Bachelor of the Year, as voted on by Cosmo readers.
“This is the part where you all send me your witty comments that I so deserve for posing with an unbuttoned shirt and slicked back hair in the nation’s largest publication,” says Ludden.
But Ludden says there’s more at stake than the ability to just get heckled by his paddling peers. The overall winner gets $10,000, which he has pledged to his First Descents paddling camp. “On any normal day, I’d just let the publication run its course and allow the 5 million readers of the magazine to have their shot at me and chalk it up to a crazy experience,” says Ludden. “But this is different. The winner receives $10,000 and if I win I have pledged to give that money to First Descents.”
Online voting takes place from Oct. 7- 14, so forget Obama and McCain for the time being and cast your vote at vote for pretty boy here.
First Descents provides free outdoor adventure programs for young adults with cancer, most of which focus on taking them kayaking. The program has grown tremenedously since its inception in Vail, COlo. “It’s been a crazy summer for FD,” says Ludden. “We saw our biggest expansion ever and served 140 participants over the course of 9 weeks in 5 different states. Sadly, we also lost our friend and Executive Director, Allan Goldberg, to cancer on the first day of our programs in June. It’s in his name that I would make this donation in order to continue the collective goal of expanding these programs to reach as many young adults as possible…and because he would have been the first to give me a hard time about the nomination.”
“Paddlers’ votes will go a long way in helping change the lives of many young adults with cancer and it might even provide some comic relief,” he adds. “I look at it like a pie throwing contest.”