Ask anyone who enjoys a bowl of cereal for breakfast what his or her favorite cereal is, and chances are high that every single person will have a different response. Cocoa Puffs, Cheerios, Life, Rice Krispies, Lucky Charms, Wheaties, Frosted Flakes, Total; the list goes on and on! Similar to last year’s inaugural Salty Snack-Off, the History Department has organized a new ultimate NCAA bracket round up this year to see which cereal is really the king.

The way that voting is determined is very simple. Every day, all Western Civilization, U.S. History, and Contemporary World Issues classes hold a vote in the beginning of class on that day’s cereal matchup, with the votes tallied by a history teacher and then submitted for counting. All of the cereals in this year’s matchup were compiled into a list and then randomly matched up on the bracket. Once the first round of the bracket is completed, the winning cereals continue on to the second round, where they face off against each other. Eventually, the bracket is whittled down to the final four cereals. Whatever two cereals win the outcome of the final four continue on to the grand finale.

The inspiration for the creation of the ultimate roundup bracket started last year with the Salty Snack-Off, the brainchild of Mr. Wejmen, Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Jurasas.

“It all started with Munchos. Mr. Wejman was having Munchos for lunch one day and claimed that they were the best salty snack ever. That got us on the subject of what was truly the best salty snack, so we decided to put it up against all other salty snacks to see which one was supreme,” stated Mr. Gonzalez.

When deciding to continue the bracket this year, the History Department chose to have breakfast cereals compete.

“We picked breakfast cereals to ensure variety because of the high volume of product, availability of choices, and it’s something that is familiar to many students,” commented Mr. Wejman.

Due to the vast amount of cereals available for purchase at the local grocery store, coming up with a manageable but competitive list was not an easy task. In order to make sure a fair representation of breakfast cereal was included, some difficult decisions had to be made. Mr. Wejman was responsible for coming up with the list of cereals, mainly through “market research and a careful studying of lists of the top 100 breakfast cereals,” added Mr. Gonzalez.

A new feature of the matchups this year is that a PowerPoint presentation was created with pictures of the cereal boxes for every matchup. There was sometimes confusion amongst students last year when they were unsure of what a certain salty snack was. With this PowerPoint, students can now have a visual representation of the breakfast cereal before they cast their vote.

Students on the whole are very excited to participating in another bracket similar to last year’s Salty Snack-Off. Even though the History Department has already started the matchups, students are already excited to be participating.

Since the bracket is currently underway, only time will tell what cereal can claim to be the best breakfast cereal. Until then, may the best cereal win!

Favorite Cereals:

• Mr. Krause – Frosted Mini Wheats
• Mr. Jurasas – Grape Nuts with sliced fresh pears
• Mr. Gonzalez – Raisin Bran
• Mr. Wejman – Raisin Bran Crunch

Favored Cereals to Win:

• Mr. Krause – Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Fruit Loops
• Mr. Jurasas – Frosted Flakes
• Mr. Gonzalez – Lucky Charms
• Mr. Wejman – Reese’s Puffs

Favored Underdog Cereal:

• Mr. Krause – Reese’s Puffs, Cocoa or Fruity Pebbles
• Mr. Jurasas – Apple Jacks
• Mr. Gonzalez – Quisp or Frosted Flakes
• Mr. Wejman – Quisp or Frosted Mini Wheats