Cereal is coming to Cheerios Kid this time

TACOMA - Just call him the Cheerios Kid.

A week and a half after Perley King took his sister's car and went for an ill-advised spin for a box of Cheerios, the 7-year-old's exploits have earned him television appearances and buckets of newspaper ink. He also drew some well-deserved punishment from his parents.

But Perley's single-minded devotion to his favorite breakfast cereal won't go unrewarded.

Tomorrow, representatives from Minnesota-based General Mills plan to visit Perley, his parents, Dwayne and Jeanne King, and six brothers and sisters at their South Tacoma home and present Perley with coupons for a year's supply of Cheerios and other surprises. Fittingly, he also may receive a new bicycle.

"So he'll never have to drive to the store again," said General Mills spokeswoman Liv Lane.

Perley lurched down the road to fame April 1 when he woke up after 8 a.m., found the rest of the household still asleep and the cupboard bare of Cheerios. He decided to take his sister's car and drive three miles to the store to get some.

With his dog, Bear, in the seat beside him, Perley navigated some of the city's busiest streets by alternately stepping on the gas pedal, then climbing on the seat to steer, chugging along toward the food store.

Pierce County sheriff's deputies received reports from other drivers that there was an "erratic driver" or "a little kid driving," sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said.

With red and blue lights flashing and only blocks from Interstate 5, deputies surrounded the car.

"That was the scariest," Perley said later.

He got out of the car with his hands up. And his mother got a startling wake-up call from deputies.

Troyer said that Perley, who said he learned to drive from playing computer games, apparently managed the adventure without an accident, except for putting a small dent in his mother's truck and bumping a patrol car when he stepped off the brake at the roadblock.

Since that time, Perley has handled the publicity from the incident well "and hasn't bragged about it," his mother said. His parents forbade him from discussing it with other children, emphasized the dangerousness of what he did and restricted him from computer games.

But they will let him have the gifts from General Mills.

"We know what he did was dangerous," Lane said. "But since he loves Cheerios that much . . ."