Figured something out...and, yes, I'm putting my age out here. Back when Illustrator was in it's infancy, it didn't have text on a path as a tool. In Washington, DC, with all the official circular seals, Government designers were going nuts. A lot of people were scanning seals in and using them that way. But I recall a method from one of the Adobe Illustrator "88" books that had been published at the time...
...to be continued on the face of the attached AD file.
Hope this helps.
TextOnACircle.afdesign