LANDER - Are you into beefy guys with shaved chests striking poses for the camera? If so, you might want to vote online in Cosmopolitan Magazine's bachelor of the year competition.

You can check out Rock Springs' own, Quinn Barto, who is among the 50 finalists - one from each state - competing this year for the $10,000 prize and national exposure.

Barto, 30, a pipeline technician, said he is on his way to New York where he will appear with the other finalists on NBC's Today Show, on Tuesday.

Barto was nominated for the award by a young Rock Springs woman, Shannon Gaeta, whom at the time he didn't know very well, he said.

Gaeta said she was just surfing the Web one day when she found the contest, and she scanned through all of the past Wyoming nominees.

"I decided I wanted to nominate somebody I thought was hot," she said. "So I went on to (Barto's) MySpace page, and got pictures and just entered him."

Gaeta said she'd only met Barto once before, when she was out one evening with friends.

"I didn't know anything else about him. All the girls I know thought he was cute. He was always happy and smiling and very nice to everybody," Gaeta said.

Gaeta knows him better now than she did when she nominated him, she said, and she feels even better about her choice.

"Even if I didn't know him, I would vote for him over all of the other guys," Gaeta said. "He probably is one of the few good men I've met. Genuinely a good-hearted person."

Barto, the son of a professional artist, draws and paints in his own right, he said, and he's sold some pieces "here and there."

He also hunts and fishes and plays drums, and he spends most of his free time in the mountains, he said.

When asked what he'd do with the $10,000 if he won the competition, Barto said he'd put most of it toward a gift.

"I want to buy my sister a car," he said. "She has a little baby girl and they definitely need a car. I'd probably just put the rest in the bank, maybe pay off some debt."

Some winners of Cosmopolitan's bachelor of the year award have gone on to modeling and acting, and the 2006 winner will compete in the television show "Survivor" this fall.

Barto said he's not getting his hopes up, but if given the opportunity to cash in on the national exposure, he probably will.

"I'm going to see what comes from this and then go from there. I might go into the art business with my dad. But if another opportunity comes up, that'd be cool."

For his part, Barto's father wasn't mincing words.

"I hope he gets rich and famous so he can take care of me in my golden years," Ben Barto said, with a laugh.

Online voting in the bachelor contest closes at midnight Sunday, and the six bachelors who receive the most Web votes will go before a panel of judges, who will then choose the ultimate winner, Barto said.

Contact reporter Chris Merrill at (307) 267-6722 or chris.merrill@trib.com

To vote in the Mr. Bachelor competition, go to www.cosmopolitan.com]]->