Driving me crazy – When Author edits owned post, Category is reset to default

I initially create the post as an admin and set the author so only that person can edit the post. This works. But, when the author goes in to edit the post it shows the correct category all the way up until they pres Update. It resets the category back to uncategorized and then posts it to the front page (Don’t want it here at all). I have Exclude Categories plugin so I can control what the front page has. The front page is for news category only. Any help PLEASE.