By PAT NEWMAN
Staff Writer

Some things just get better with time. After initial recognition in 1979 by the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, Paul Oddo Sr.'s publication titled “Uncle Sam and the Flag” received a McGuffey award in July, exactly 20 years after its debut.

The children's text, which explains the words contained in the United States Pledge of Allegiance, came from Oddo Publishing of Fayetteville.

The small, established publishing house shares space in one of two Quonset huts off Redwine Road with the Oddos' accounting business and offices for GTO's drive-in restaurant, also an Oddo enterprise.

Receiving a “McDuffie” is comparable to being nominated to the textbook hall of fame. According to Oddo, a publication must be in circulation for 16 years before it can be considered for recognition by the William Holmes McGuffey Text and Academic Authors Association Inc.

The judges called “Uncle Sam and the Flag” a wonderful child's book. “Its goal is to help children memorize the Pledge and its succeeds wonderfully,” said the judges. “Dr. Lee Mountain (author of the book) has done a great service to her students as well as her country by preparing this book. Bravo!”

Oddo is thrilled with this latest award, and last week presented a copy of “Uncle Sam and the Flag” to the Fayette County Board of Education, also giving them its publication history.

He is a living example of how age serves to make a person even more vital. Sitting in one of several offices tucked away in the light green structures situated on Storybook Acres, Oddo was more than delighted to share his stories about his life in the publishing business with his wife, Genevieve, and his three sons, Paul Jr., Chuck and Warren.

Oddo grew up in the Ridgewood section of Queens, just bordering on Brooklyn.

“We hated each other and we loved each other, the two boroughs,” Oddo chuckled. His wife is a fellow New Yorker who lived a few blocks from the shores of Coney Island, “the mecca of tourism,” according to Oddo.

After they married, Oddo worked as an educational consultant for Grolier, known for its books of knowledge. The couple lived for a while in Westchester County, and then moved to Minnesota. “We settled in Mankato, 84 miles southwest of Minneapolis, a lovely little town... it's a college town,” he explained. After years of covering a territory that stretched from the Canadian border into Florida, Oddo and his wife decided to break out on their own and open their business. Oddo Publishing was born.

In the meantime, Genevieve “kept the family together,” Oddo said.

“They know nothing else, my boys, but work; they've been working since they were 3 years of age,” he joked.

Oddo handled the promotional end of the business, while his wife and, eventually, Chuck took on the editorial side. “Chuck and the missus, they are the two responsible for dotting the i's and crossing the t's, for using the proper language and correcting the sentence structure,” Oddo said.

Eventually, the Oddos moved to Fayetteville and set up shop in their present location off Redwine Road in the early `70s. A more temperate climate lured the family south. Oddo recalled the town of Fayetteville, having traveled through on his way to Atlanta where he regularly met with the city's board of education on behalf of Grolier.

“We loved it. We published books here, a great number of them,” he said. Oddo added that he is proud of the fact that “there must a million Oddo Publishing books, published in Fayetteville, Ga., all over the country, and that's not hard to take.”

“We made Fayetteville the educational center of the state,” Oddo added.

There is a modest inventory of Oddo Publishing titles stored on the shelves of the company's headquarters. The 20-book “Bobby Bear” series contains another Freedoms Foundation winner, entitled “Bobby Bear and Uncle Sam's Riddle” along with a slew of texts on everything from conservation to Christmas.

Currently, “Uncle Sam and the American Flag” is being printed in significant numbers for various chapters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars around the country. The vets distribute the books to schools to teach young children about the Pledge in a simple and entertaining way.

The Oddos have taken a sabbatical from publishing new titles and are now focusing on the retail end of their business and promoting the books they already have. Their books can be found on media center shelves at elementary schools around the county and have sold well at Kroger and Wal-Mart.