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First Female Athlete On The Front Of The Wheaties Box

March 2, 2012 by · Comments Off on First Female Athlete On The Front Of The Wheaties Box 

First Female Athlete On The Front Of The Wheaties Box, Wheaties is a brand of General Mills breakfast cereal. It is well known for featuring prominent athletes on the exterior of the package, and has become a major cultural icon. Primarily comprising a wheat and bran mixture baked into flakes, it was introduced in 1924.

A scale model of a Wheaties box to commemorate the opening of Glory Road on the UTEP campus, November 29, 2005. 1966 NCAA basketball championship team members Willie Worsley and Nevil Shedd, are pictured on the box, cutting down the hoop net.

Wheaties was created in 1922, as a result of an accidental spill of a wheat bran mixture onto a hot stove by a Minnesota clinician working for the Washburn Crosby Company (later General Mills). By November 1924, after over 36 attempts to strengthen the flakes to withstand packaging, the process for creating the flakes had been perfected by the Washburn head miller, George Cormack, and the cereal was named Washburn’s Gold Medal Whole Wheat Flakes. Soon after, the name was changed to Wheaties as a result of an employee contest won by the wife of a company export manager, Jane Bausman. Other names passed over included “Nutties” and “Gold Medal Wheat Flakes”.

Wheaties began to be advertised on Minneapolis’ WCCO radio station on December 24, 1926, with the first-ever commercial jingle. Its lyrics were sung to the tune of the then-popular “She’s a Jazz Baby”:

“Have you tried Wheaties?
They’re whole wheat with all of the bran.
Won’t you try Wheaties?
For wheat is the best food of man.

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