How to configure WP with excerpts

I have built a site with WordPress and we are using post to make news and updates. On the sites home page I would like to have a “News” sidebar with recent post excerpts and then a blog or news page that would act like the home page. What is the best way to do this.

1. Install wordpress and not have the home page be the blog? How would I pull the excerpts into the home page? I have tried feedburner and would rather keep it on my server.

2. Can I create some sort of archive page that would look like the home page in a wordpress install?

Any thoughts or help would be great.
Thanks,
Dave