It's been a banner year for Rocky Mount flag producer.

• Position: Southeastern Advertising Inc. - Company profile

It's been a banner year for Rocky Mount flag producer

Southeastern Advertising Inc. is thanking its lucky stars -- and stripes. As the largest distributor of flags in the Southeast, the Rocky Mount-based company has seen its sales of Old Glory climb 20 percent a year since 1981.

The reason? "Patriotism is in now," says Steve Moore, the company's executive vice president of sales, "and people of all types feel good about flying the flag."

The 24-year-old, eight-employee company, which grossed a fourth of its $400,000 in '89 sales from flags, is more a supplier of promotional items than a full-service ad agency. Most of its gewgaws, including a couple of million 9-inch-tall pink Easter bunnies, go to Hardee's.

Southeastern's owner, Jack Bailey, got into the flag business in theearly 1960s as a Hardee's franchise owner. The trademark of his restaurants was an oversized 12-by-18-foot American flag on a 60-foot pole. Bailey, who has since sold his 128 Hardee's restaurants to a group of...