>Does it lose scope if you comment out the entire PARAMETERS line? Of course you have to modify the calling program, too. If that causes it to keep scope, then add back the parameters one at a time to see which one kills it.

Steve,

Your suggestion allowed me to find the problem. The parameter list (someone else's code) was fairly cryptic in naming convention so I didn't catch that the public variable was being passed until I started adding them back one at a time. I didn't know this before researching last night, but when a public variable is passed as a parameter it becomes hidden. The solution was to assign the value of the public variable to a new variable and send the new variable as the parameter. This kept the public variable in scope. Thanks to you and to the Wiki...

Renoir