widget areas on front page messing up blog navigation and post listing

Folks:

I just redesigned my site, but one new item I tried to implement failed. That new item is a widget area on the front page, right atop the posts listing. I did that by inserting code between the get_header and < div id=”content” >, that is the start of the home page content area.

The widgets rendered as intended, however, it stopped the 5 most recent posts from displaying, and disabled page navigation. I’ve searched for solutions to this, but so far found nothing. This does not seem to be the classic query_post dilemma.

For reference, here’s the code I inserted between get_header and the content in index.php:

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar("subHeadA") ) : ?>
<div class="subHead subHead-rndleft"> 

</div>
<?php endif; ?>

<div id="subHeadB"> non-widgeted area</div>

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar("subHeadC") ) : ?>
<div class="subHead subHead-rndright"> 

</div>
<?php endif; ?>
<!--#subHeader stop-->

<!--#content:start-->

You may view the new design minus the problem area at https://linuxbsdos.com

TIA.