Let's take a step back.
I am assuming that the issue you are running into is that it didn't show up on the front page of your website, but it does show up in your system correct? If you have everything in the proper categories, it is likely that the cache just didn't get flushed, so even though it is in the system it isn't being displayed to the users yet because they are seeing an older cache version of your category list.
One way to verify this is the case would be to go to the article in Publish, edit it, you don't have to make any changes, but be sure to mark it as approved, click on update. That should flush the cache.
Does it now show up in the list you expect it to?