Excel to Word Mail Merge

Excel 2003
Word 2003

Am doing a mail merge from excel into a word document. All columns are visible to word except for the very first column. I have tried different documents with same result. It appears something in the file is saying ignore col 1. When I bring it up in excel - no problems. I even renamed the My Documents/My Data Sources directory thinking that something was being kept in a setup file somewhere, but it made no difference. Have even tried to unhide the col in excel, even though it wasn't hidden.

This is driving me crazy ! (OK, crazier !)

Anyone have any suggestions ?
Bob

I am using Row 1 as column tags. Each col in row 1 has a value. Hope that answers your question.

Thank You.
Bob