[DHDesign]

well, its not only the display_footer() function i need, but to answer your question:

function display_footer() {
  $footer = mysql_query("SELECT Footer_Text FROM footer_table WHERE F_ID = 1 LIMIT 1");
  $footerrow = mysql_fetch_array($footer);
  print $footerrow['Footer_Text'];
}

--------------- Added [DATE]1204764706[/DATE] at [TIME]1204764706[/TIME] ---------------

@Opserty: that worked, but what if my include file has more than one function in it and i want to display different things in different areas of the template? say i have display_footer(), display_navigation(), display_header()....each now needs a variable to display in different parts...do i just create three separate hooks?

@WhaLberg: thanks for ur help and responses...the only issue with ur method is that id have to change my functions to return values...these functions are also used on other nonvbulletin pages, so changing them affects other pages too