Yes! Thank you macropod. The issue was an artifact of "keep with next."

Your response led me to understand that the problems I'm seeing are artifacts of the "keep with next" attribute that I've had as the default for all paragraphs within my styles.
After some testing, i conclude that "keep with next" works from the end of a document backward toward the front and then does NOT "keep with next" at a section break if the following text cannot fit on the next column.

If I remove the "keep with next" from the para after the section break, I get that para on Column 1 followed by other text on column 2. ???

After that non-logical result, I'll restrain myself from expectation that "keep with next" functions logically (at least by my intuitive logic) when overflows occur. I'll avoid "keep with next."

Removing "keep with next" from all paragraphs including teh section break makes the output behave logically.

I conclude that "keep with next" is not WAA* but WAI** and must be treated with care!

* WAA Working As Advertised
* WAI Working As Implemented

Thanks MACROPOD !! JB