list post categories with default styling on page

My client would like the ability to add post categories to pages – basically she wants to provide a static introduction to each post category.

She’s got many different categories that she’s going to be expanding into – so I’m hesitant to start building custom templates for each new category she wants to do this with.

I have beautifully formatted titles and dates, a Facebook like button and “continue reading” links that I want to preserve.

I’ve played with plugins like “List Category Posts” and “Display Posts Shortcode,” but all they return is a list that has been stripped of all styles. My best efforts to add styles back are fruitless, because the outputted elements have no identifying classes – so there is no way to format the text, the title, and the date separately.

The easiest thing that I could think of would be a simple plugin that allows for an introduction to be assigned to post categories. The only thing that I’ve found, however, can only apply a single, universal introduction to every category.

poop…

Any ideas?