Forget Coke Bottle Glasses: St. Louis' 2008 Sexiest Cyber-Geek Contest

The interwebs is no longer the domain of the socially awkward. St. Louis' cyber-culture is full of sexy ladies and gentlemen who can blind you with coding, blogging, and building as well as their good looks.

Using online communities and tools, like Twitter and Facebook, we solicited nominations for St. Louis' Sexiest Cyber-Geek. There were a ton of nominations and we accepted every.single.one. There were a few cyber-gods and goddesses who declined to be included in the contest, and there were some who thought it sounded like a lot of fun.

Below are photos and short bios for the men and women nominees that were submitted by St. Louis' wired community. After reading about these titillating-techies you can cast your vote to bestow the title of 'St. Louis' 2008's Sexiest Cyber-Geek' to your favorite online lady and dude. Voting will be open until midnight on January 9, 2009 and the winners, as selected by you, will be profiled on our site. Good luck and w00t to all the nominees.

Lady Nominees

Dana Loesch
Nominated by

Dana Loesch authors Mamalogues.com and hosts her own radio show, The Dana Show, on KFTK 97.1 FM Talk. She has written for corporate parenting communities and major-market publications such as St. Louis Magazine, The Riverfront Times, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was named the Riverfront Times Best Columnist of 2007 for her popular newspaper column on motherhood and she was selected as one of St. Louis's "30 Under 30″ by the St. Louis Business Journal in 2008. Dana is also a contributing editor at Blogher, contributes to Mamapop and Imperfect Parent, and vlogs for Momversation. Dana founded the St. Louis Bloggers Guild in early 2008 and also speaks regularly on the subject of blogging and social media. She and her husband, Chris, and their two young sons live in St. Louis City. (Photo courtesy Holly McCaig)

Kelly Stevens
Nominated by Julia Dalton

My name is Kelly Stevens and I am a 26 year old web developer from St. Louis. While I love web development it's not the main focus of my life. When I am not being a tech nerd I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, training for my next half marathon, and of course shopping. She blogs at devgirlspeaks.

 

 

 

Raquita Henderson
Nominated by Mary Pat Garascia Killmer

So what can one say about my sexy? I am a wedding photographer who has an uncanny ability to perform well in trivia and pop culture board games, I love football (Go COWBOYS!) love to cook, and have said "yes dear you are right and I was wrong," on enough occasions that my better half isn't stunned to hear it. I have discoved the joys of being womanly in the last few years and I decidedly like it. I do have children and while that leads me to being decidedly not sexy some days (who can be sexy with a toddler attached to your life stained sweat shirt?) I keep enough baby sitters on tap to make sure I remember HAWT is the necessary facet of a HAWT MOMMA, and that my hawt comes from being happy and I am.

Stephanie Haworth
Nominated by Scott Haworth

 

Stephanie's online profile is . She is a computer hardware monkey who does in-home PC repair, with a side of graphic design.

 

 

 

 

Guy Nominees

Nominated By Mike Brewer

I'm an IT recruiter for a local staffing firm and a self-admitted technology addict. I like finding new ways to do things through technology and frequently earn the "geek" label for my attempts. I moonlight as a web-admin for a volunteer organization in the city and take night classes in software development. Being a single dad I like playing with my 5 year old and pretending I don't like kid toys more than mine. Geek aside, I'm a normal guy and a pretty social individual. I like going out for drinks, watching sports, and going to concerts. I'm starting to feel like I'm applying for Match.com so I'll stop there.

 

 

Mike Flynn
Nominated by Jacob McCaig

Mike is the lead/only developer for ToastedRav (which is why we are using a Poll Daddy poll as opposed to the one that I built, and thus control, to keep the voting fair) and has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. He is 27 years old, obviously sexy as all get out (do people still say that?) and his turn-ons include: sports, cartoons, girls that look like Kristen Bell and haikus written in binary. His turn-offs include: Things that aren't sports or cartoons, girls that don't look like Kristen Bell and regular haikus.

 

Jay Gaines
Nominated by Anonymous

Marketing iconoclast and visionary rockstar Jay Gaines recently joined local marketing communications agency 2e Creative as Interactive Creative Director, helping the team further expand into the realms of digital awesomeness.

With more than 10 years of experience in the industry, Jay was made for this gig. Originally a designer in the traditional sense, Jay realized that marketing was trending more and more toward the interactive space, and began to shape his destiny in kind, teaching himself along the way. Rising through the ranks, Jay's leadership skills and vision inevitably led him to 2e Creative, a team known for absorbing only the best and brightest. Like Pod People, but with good intentions.

An artist from the get-go, Jay has long believed in the power of visual media to move and engage people, and create emotional connections. And he brings that keen eye to the interactive realm. Jay's responsibilities include project management, strategy and concept development, and answering our questions about outdated computer buzzwords:

"Does anyone still say 'Information Superhighway'?'
"No."
"Did anyone ever?"
"No one cool."

Brad Graham
Nominated by Chris Freeland

A Missouri native, Brad L. Graham lives in St. Louis' historic Shaw neighborhood, sharing a house with his pal Ken, four Tivos, at least five Macintosh computers and an embarrassingly large collection of DVDs and CDs (largely cast albums and cabaret). After an extremely eclectic professional life that has included stints as a journalist, technical writer, arts administrator and actor/director, he is now the publicist for the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.

He is the proprietor of The BradLands, a personal weblog and paean to his own ego begun in 1998, and is the Baby-sitter for SXSWBaby!, an unofficial weblog for all things related to the South by Southwest media and music festival, among many other websites he haunts or has a hand in creating.

Of his many accomplishments, the one of which he is most proud is once being referred to as "the most dangerous Sodomite in Missouri" by the Rev. Fred Phelps. He continues to disavow having coined the word "blogosphere."

Brad just turned 40 and, despite his vast intellect, sparkling wit and matinée-idol good looks, remains inexplicably single. He remains hopeful, however, that someday Matt Damon will come to his senses and make an honest man of him.

Chris Freeland
Nominated by Brad Graham

Chris Freeland is the Director of Bioinformatics at the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Technical Director of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Mr. Freeland has an M.S. in Biological Sciences from Eastern Illinois University and has worked as a technologist in scientific organizations for more than 10 years. He has been a project manager for several large informatics projects, including the development of the Tropicos botanical information system and the BHL (biodiversity library).

Scott Haworth
Nominated by Stephanie Haworth

Scott's online profile is . He is a network admin and a turntable DJ.

 

 

 

 

 

Frank Kusiak
Nominated by Chip Stone

Frank Kusiak, 34, works at the St. Louis Science Center as the Cyberville Gallery Lead. He teaches kids how to program robots and helps them understand basic computer science concepts. He has an MA in History: he wrote his thesis on how computer games present history. He is currently finishing a Masters in Learning Technology. In the spring, he'll be at UC-Berkeley at the Lawrence Hall of Science working on educational websites. In his spare time, he plays Civilization IV, any World War II game, and works out at Gold's Gym in O'Fallon, IL. He also snowboards and loves to cook Thai and Indian food.