Local Men are Finalists in PETA’s ‘Sexiest Vegan Over 50 Contest’
Animal Advocates Battle It Out to Take Home Top Honors—and a Free Stay at a Luxury Beachfront Wellness Retreat
For Immediate Release:
September 17, 2019
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
PETA Prime is preparing to crown this year’s Sexiest Vegans Over 50—and two local men are each vying to be one of the two winners. Tim Medearis of Vancouver, Washington, and Omar Ordonez of Gresham, Oregon, beat out entrants from across the country to advance to the final round of six contestants. Visitors to PETA Prime’s website can now help the group select the two lucky winners, who will each receive a three-night stay at Balance for Life Florida, an all-inclusive wellness retreat at a beautiful oceanfront resort.
Medearis had been a vegetarian for 18 years when he watched Cowspiracy nearly four years ago—and he immediately went vegan. Since then, his arthritis pain has almost entirely disappeared—and he has inspired several of his colleagues to go vegan themselves. He and his wife can frequently be found volunteering at their local farmed-animal sanctuary, running the children’s corner at vegetarian/vegan fests throughout the Pacific Northwest, and leading powerful “Cube of Truth” demonstrations, both locally and as far away as Austria.
When Ordonez’s teenage daughter suggested that their family go vegetarian in 2009, he decided to go along with it, assuming that she’d stick with it for just a few weeks. But after learning how animals suffer in the meat, egg, and dairy industries, he, his wife, and his daughter decided to go vegan on the spot—and they never looked back. “I was floored by the level of cruelty that we inflict on animals,” he says. “I’m a guy who refused to kill bugs in the house and instead carried them safely outside, so why was I disregarding the suffering of all other animals?” He and his family share their home with four dogs, all of whom he picked up as injured strays while riding his motorcycle to the tip of South America.
“From South America to Austria to their homes in the Pacific Northwest, Tim Medearis and Omar Ordonez never stop looking for ways to help animals everywhere they go,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Each of the finalists in PETA Prime’s Sexiest Vegan Over 50 Contest is a testament to how attractive vegans of all ages are, inside and out.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. The group notes that in addition to saving nearly 200 animals each every year from daily suffering and a terrifying death, people who go vegan are less prone to suffering from heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity than meat-eaters are.
Voting for the finalists to help PETA Prime determine which ones it should select as the winners ends on September 27. The group will choose the winners based on several factors, including vote count. See the full contest details here. Winners will be notified and announced on September 30.
For more information, please visit Prime.PETA.org.
