Need Recent Posts Widget Equivalent in Column 1

[hcmccarthy]

Hello,

New to wordpress/metro so please be gentle. Our site http://www.wordtown.com has the categories listed as "Neighborhoods". These are meant to provide the main navigation in the site.

Because Metro seems to be set up to have basically "Recent Articles" as the first category we are running into issues.

Basically, I would like the equivalent of the "Recent Posts" widget on the right sidebar to appear in column 1 "Featured Category" - which is at the moment set to "Recent Articles".

As it stands we have to choose between using the recent posts from only one category, or having a "Recent Posts" category that does not fit in the navigation scheme and requires double categorization from each author. Ideally we'd like to keep the default Column 1 "Featured Category" below a "Recent Posts" section, also in Column 1, that would be universal to all categories.

Is there a way to do this? Please tell me what pages to modify and where to insert any code.

The only other workaround I can think of is to make every category or "neighborhood" a subcategory of the parent "Recent Articles" and then find a way to make "Recent Articles" disappear from the widget, yet I'd still need it to show up as the "Featured Category" if this method was used.

Please advise.

Thanks.