FROM THE ARCHIVE

Put Thorpe on Wheaties

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der=0 cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0 width=100%> Put Thorpe on Wheaties
MAY 15, 2000

Anna McKibben
10th National Miss Indian USA
Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma
63181 E.60 Rd., Quapaw, OK 74363
(918) 542-1853

May 8, 2000

QUAPAW, OK -Anna McKibben, the 10th National Miss Indian USA from the Quapaw tribe in Oklahoma, has initiated a campaign to place Sac and Fox Indian athlete Jim Thorpe's Image and sports achievements on the Wheaties cereal box.

According to Jim Thorpe's daughter and family historian Grace Thorpe, her father is the only American athlete is history to excel in three major sports both as an amateur and as a professional. In 1912, in Track and Field, he won the Decathlon and Pentathlon at the Olympics held in Stockholm, Swede. In football, he is founding father of professional football serving as the first president of what is now the National Football League. In baseball, Thorpe played with the New York Giants, Cincinnati Reds, and finished the 1919 Boston Braves season with a .327 bating average.

In a 1950 Associated Press poll, he was judged American's greatest All-Around Male Athlete and America's Greatest Football Player of the half-century. Fifty years later, his talent still unparalleled, Thorpe was proclaimed ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Century prior to the 2000 Super Bowl in Atlanta. The ABC poll was based on internet votes with Thorpe receiving a staggering majority of the votes.

"Jim Thorpe has not received the recognition he deserves for his unsurpassed contributions in the United States and throughout the world to amateur and professional sports. His image on the Wheaties box would help to rectify him being overlooked in the past."

Individuals, organizations, groups, tribes, school children, and others wishing to support this project are urged to write or all:

General Mills, Wheaties Department P.O. Box 1113, Minneapolis, MN 55440 1-800-328-1144

For further information, contact Anna McKibben, 63181 East 60 Road, Quapaw, Oklahoma 74363, (918) 542-1853