'Bachelor' was fun for Midvale woman SUSAN WHITNEY Deseret News on Monday, October 21, 2002 She had fun living in a mansion and riding around in a limo, but the 22-year-old from Utah knew she and The Bachelor weren't right for each other. When she didn't make it past the third round in ABC's reality dating show, Kyla Dickerson, of Midvale, says she was "not heartbroken." The episode in which Dickerson got rejected aired last Wednesday. Kyla Dickerson This is the second season for "The Bachelor," a program in which 25 women live in a grand house in California while simultaneously dating the same man. At the end of each episode he presents a rose to the women he wants to keep seeing. Dickerson watched the show last season and sent in an application to be on this season's series. ABC called and asked her to submit a video. In the video she said she was looking for an ambitious and respectful man, and she described herself as fun-loving and moral. From more than 7,000 applicants, ABC chose 45 young women to fly to Los Angeles for interviews and then selected the final 25 contestants. The series was filmed in July and August. Contestants are sworn to secrecy about how it ends. Dickerson says she had a great time just being around all the other women. And the bachelor, Missouri banker Aaron Buerge, was nice, from what she got to know of him. They were shown on several group dates. "On the show it didn't really show that I did have at least three alone times with him," Dickerson says. During those times they basically talked about family. His family, her family, her family's beliefs. "It was not that he'd never met an LDS person, but he had never dated one," she said. Dickerson might have been more interested in him, but there he was, dating 25 women at once and kissing some of them, and well . . . Dickerson believes, "You should get to know people . . . that you could date for a couple of weeks or even longer without kissing." Dickerson was born in San Antonio, Texas. When she was 11, her parents divorced and her mother brought the children to Utah, to be near her own parents. Dickerson has an older brother, a twin brother and two younger sisters. Her mother, Darla Dickerson, says she never thought her daughter would make it past the second or third round on "The Bachelor." "To tell you the truth, I would have been upset if she would have gone on." The show "gets pretty dicey" past the third round, Kyla's mom says. She's sure Buerge liked her daughter, but she also never believed he would be "able to get past who she is." Kyla's a beautiful girl with a mind and a soul and high standards, her mom says. "Aaron knew he wasn't going to get to kiss Kyla." To have kept her on the show would have been wasting her time and his, she figures. Her mother believes Kyla "made a difference" just by going on the show. She says the producers as well as some of the other contestants, especially Hayley, admired Kyla for sticking to her standards. (Hayley Crittenden told her hometown newspaper in Oregon she wouldn't be kissing Aaron, either.) For Dickerson's family, having Kyla on "The Bachelor" "was a much more spiritual thing than it appears," her mother says. The season finale last year drew more than 19 million viewers. The top number so far this season has been 12 million. Despite audience acclaim, critics imply there is more going on than serial kissing and have called the show sleazy. "The Bachelor" is "definitely a different style of dating," Dickerson says. Sure, she's been lined up before and gone out to dinner with someone she didn't know but never in a venue like this, never with TV cameras following them and never with two girlfriends who were interested in him as well. "But I'm always up for something challenging. That's why I did it." This story appeared in The Deseret News 10/21/2002