More updates:
I came back to my cubicle and saw the screen was blank.  I don't know what's happening.  Last week if I came back, I would see a different message.  Now it's blank.  Something is happening after a few minutes that is strange.

i'm fairly positive what's happening is the screensaver is kicking in on top of the away message executable.
try right clicking on your display and checking out and previewing your screensaver settings.  try setting the screensaver to something else other than MPQ.

Ah!  That makes sense.  Well, I just tried what you suggested and it worked.  But, I'm still having a problem with the fonts.  It's using the default white font still.

I don't get the font thing.  Here's what's happening.  I have a history of away messages now.  Some of them abide by my custom font settings and some don't.  The ones that don't go to the default white font.  I can't figure out why some messages do it and some don't.  It seems random to me.  Like my lunch message will always be in white.  My meeting message always works ok.