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Baker, Kovic on GOT Publishing board

Major Market agrees to carry books

Joe Naiman

Village News Reporter

The new 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation GOT Publishing has Fallbrook residents Karen Langer Baker as the chief executive officer and Jack Kovic, who is John Kovic on legal documents, as the treasurer.

GOT Publishing specializes in children's videos and books, and Major Market has agreed to carry the books.

The mission of GOT Publishing is to provide reading programs to beginning readers. The on-line content is free for the parents and youth while the physical books are helping to fund the nonprofit corporation's expenses until sponsorship can be obtained.

"This is definitely designed to help a lot of young children," Baker said.

Within the first couple of months, the gotpublishing.com website had more than 10,000 hits. "We see that people are using it," Kovic said.

Arlene Yates, who lived in Fallbrook from 1990 to 2016 before moving to Temecula, is providing the entertaining educational content. "Just a wonderful achievement," Yates said of GOT Publishing obtaining 501(c)(3) status. "I never would have imagined achieving this."

Yates is not on the board, since she may be paid in the future for her work. "It's a conflict of interest for her to be on the board," Kovic said. "She's a volunteer fundraiser."

"We're hoping to raise the money," Yates said.

"She provides all the creative input for the free on-line reading program," Kovic said. "She's also stepped up and offered to volunteer her services as a fundraiser."

The current license agreement allows GOT Publishing to use Yates' work at no charge. "It's a zero payment. She's donating her content," Kovic said. "She was generous enough to let us have it for free."

The third officer of GOT Publishing, secretary Dawn Fitzpatrick, lives on Long Island where Kovic was raised. Kovic and Fitzpatrick have known each other since their childhood.

Baker began her teaching career in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook, where she taught from 1955 to 1962. She then taught at the El Dorado School for Gifted Children in Orange County from 1962 to 1965 and then taught special education in Yorba Linda. During her teaching career she taught art at the elementary school, middle school, and high school levels and she is a past president of the Fallbrook Art Association as well as a winner in numerous juried art competitions. She is also certified to teach natural childbirth classes and did so for approximately 15 years, and she became a hypnotherapist in 1989. She currently works with local youth on behalf of the Association of American University Women.

"All my life I've been a teacher of some sort or another," Baker said.

The combination of education and public service appealed to Baker. "It's not a big surprise that Karen is a volunteer," Kovic said.

"It just fell right into my wheelhouse," Baker said. "I love being of service. I love doing things that I know are going to make a difference in someone's life."

Kovic was born in 1961, so he watched Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood during his childhood. "We'd like to be a modern-day Sesame Street," he said. "We also have a sociological connection like Mr. Rogers."

Sesame Street had Jim Henson's Muppets as well as human actors (including Carroll Spinney, who donned the Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch costumes). Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood utilized humans at his home and he was joined by puppets in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. Yates' skills include puppets as well as music. "She's basically another Jim Henson, but she tends to be better," Kovic said.

Yates has composed more than 100 children's songs.

Kovic has owned Jack's Music in Fallbrook for 20 years. When he was in Long Island he was in a band with three musicians who later became The Stray Cats. Kovic was a surgical technician in the Navy and earned the Navy Achievement Medal for developing an emergency medical technician training program. When he was at the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton, he developed the hospital's first web page, was the deputy public affairs officer, and was the publisher of the hospital's monthly newsletter. After his discharge, Kovic was a financial planner for Morgan Stanley and Washington Mutual. After his retirement from the financial industry, Kovic worked for the Institute of Reading Development and sold reading programs. In addition to providing music lessons at Jack's Music, he occasionally performs concerts and met Yates through his music endeavors.

Yates, who was raised in Monterey Park, has been in several bands including the first all-girl rock and roll band in the San Gabriel Valley. In addition to singing, she plays several instruments including guitar, saxophone, and ukulele. After moving to Temecula to be closer to her grandchildren, Yates began working with the Murrieta Valley Unified School District. The district's Orff-Schulwerk Music Program combines music with dancing, drama, and other physical activity which allows the children to obtain exercise as well as music knowledge.

"Arlene is perfect for this," said MVUSD visual and performing arts coordinator for elementary education Carol Hernandez. "She's perfect to be a teaching artist for young children because she's very animated."

The GOT Publishing acronym stands for Garden of Tomorrow, which is Yates' "fantasy land". "It's a wonderful place that we created for all my friends, my puppet friends," she said. "It's a fun place for children."

Garden of Tomorrow and GOT Publishing are separate organizations. "She's very excited that GOT Publishing has agreed to lease her creative content," Kovic said.

Although Garden of Tomorrow is not a nonprofit corporation, Yates places creativity and utilizes her talents to make an impact ahead of financial gain. "It's not about the money. It's about the realization of creative endeavor," Kovic said.

"It's a wonderful feeling," Yates said.

"She finally can share her work and help thousands, maybe millions, of children," Kovic said. "There's such a need out there for this program."

Yates has produced six books, not including associated coloring books. "For each book I create, I create the characters and the songs," she said.

The songs are at the back of each book.

Three of the books are the Haja series. "It teaches kids about bullying," Yates said.

Haja has long arms, so the other children make fun of him. In the first book Haja uses his long arms to save the other children from drowning. Haja leads his basketball team to success in the second book. In the third book, his class is on a field trip to pick apples and without an available ladder Haja is able to grab the apples.

Yates has also written two Mindy Mermaid books. Yates has a daughter named Mindy, who isn't the thief who learns a lesson in the first book. Yates' granddaughter, Stevie, was interested in mermaids, so Yates named the mermaid after her mother. "That's how Mindy Mermaid came about," Yates said.

Yates' daughter didn't mind the mermaid thief having her name. "She just loved it as a story," Yates said.

The other Mindy Mermaid book features a shark's tooth which is allegedly magical. Mindy Mermaid learns that she can achieve her desires without the magic item. "You have the ability to achieve your goal," Kovic said.

The other book is called Land of Tea; the setting is a tea party and the lesson is about sharing.

Fitzpatrick was once a secretary for the Town of Oyster Bay's Handicapped Services Program which provides social and recreational experience for developmentally disabled individuals. She then established and operated a limousine company before transitioning to working as a hospice nurse.

GOT Publishing currently produces 15-minute segments on YouTube. That platform will suffice until GOT Publishing is offered time on a cable television channel which won't ask GOT Publishing to compromise its mission. "We will not turn them down," Kovic said. "We're looking to get picked up by the media. That would be nice."

The on-line program is free, although items are available for purchase with proceeds going to GOT Publishing.

"The phonics reader is really a component of the free on-line reading program," Kovic said. "It should prepare a child for first grade."

The content is also intended for those learning to read and write. "We're trying to keep ourselves concise so that a parent over the summer can teach their child how to read," Kovic said.

The target age group is 3 to 5, although it can be used for remedial education for older children. "We see that people are using it for beginning readers," Kovic said.

What nobody in the GOT Publishing leadership envisioned is that it would also be used by older people in other nations. "Different people from around the world are using the program as a means to learn English," Kovic said. "People in Russia are using the program. People in Germany are using the program."

The user's nation is part of the web data obtained and users in 10 different countries, so far, have participated in GOT Publishing lessons. "It's helping foreigners learning," Yates said. "These things came out by surprise."

The program is also helping locals to learn. Major Market has purchased the six books along with the five coloring books.

"Every day we see it growing," Yates said.

 

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