KENNEWICK — Faith Martin, a Tri-Cities musician, radio host and teacher who built a podcast around dating in her 50s, will compete for the heart of a widowed restaurateur from Indiana in The Golden Bachelor. It’s the new senior edition of ABC’s The Bachelor reality TV series.
Martin, 60, is starring in the inaugural season The Golden Bachelor, an offshoot of The Bachelor franchise that focuses on the romantic adventures of 22 mature ladies and its titular personality, Gerry Turner, 72.
Golden Bachelor premiers at 8 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 28, on ABC.
Turner was identified as the The Golden Bachelor early on, but the women’s identities were kept secret until a big reveal Wednesday morning.
Martin teaches radio broadcasting at Tri-Tech Skills Center in Kennewick and is a singer and guitar player with Bobby & Faith Acoustic Duo and formerly performed with The Shades. She lives in Benton City and is the only contestant from the Pacific Northwest.
She is an on-air personality with 100.9 KTSO, 94.9 The Wolf and 106.5 Eagle, which air across the nation.
Martin documented her own romantic experiences in “The Dating Chronicles of a Fifty Something Female” podcast, which can be accessed on her website, thefaithmartin.com/about.
In 2013, Tri-City Herald readers voted her the area’s most popular DJ in the annual Tri-Cities Best rankings. (The 2023 edition was released this week.)
Originally from Santa Cruz, Calif., Martin moved to the Tri-Cities in 1990 and worked as a morning television news anchor. She has two sons, four grandchildren and loves spending time with her horses.
She and the other contestants will vie for the attention of Turner, described by Entertainment Weekly as a widower looking for love after 43 years of marriage to his high school sweetheart, Toni, who died in 2017.
“Dating on this show is going to be an altogether new experience,” he told his adults daughters in a promotional video.
“What I hope is I can look at one of those women and know that I found the right person,” he said, while going on to ask for advice on dating in 2023.
His daughter told him to upgrade his texting game and stop addressing recipients with a formal “Dear …”
Turner has two adult children and “loves pickleball,” Entertainment Weekly said.
A teaser video, set to the late Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best,” carries the tagline, “You can’t be seasoned without a little spice.”
