Gnome Panel disappeared

[Art Ross <aross skyenet net>]

The default panel that comes with the Gnome install has worked for me
ever since the install months ago.  Well, last night when shutting down
X Windows, I noticed some errors.  I was leaving work so left the
problem till the next day.  When returning to work and booting my Linux
RH7.1 machine, the panel didn't appear in GNOME.  I tried the root
account and it was also missing the panel.  I've reviewed the GNOME
User's Guide but cannot find anything addressing this problem.
  Thinking my configuration files in the user account were corrupted, I
changed the names of the .gnome directories and restarted GNOME.  No
such luck!!!  The same effect occurred.
  Does anyone have a clue?
  Thanks in advance,
  Art