Home Page Dynamic, with thread categories in columns

I apologize for wanting to get a quick solution from the pros up here instead of wading through trial and error, but my time is getting short before I have to go to a place where net access is somewhat prohibited (China).

I am trying to set up my blog for archers so that the home page for it displays each of three Categories side-by-side, so that the reader can pick which one to read. There will only be three. I want to provide one category for archers at the youth world championship in Turkey to be able to email posts in, yet keep that thread of blogging displayed separately from the one I will be doing during the Beijing Paralympics (My daughter is the only US female archer – go Lindsey!)

It would be good if the head of each category displayed the description along with the title of the category. I have set up two of the categories to accept emails for posts, that works ok.

I know how to create a table in an html page that is totally static, but I want to utilize (what I think is ) the excellent dynamic characteristics of WP. Please help, and feel free to point me to existing templates that do this, if that is what works bestest/fastest….?