link colors not overriding?

[Jakeman]

Sorry I can't provide a URL to the actual page... it's a work in progress that I want to keep private. But here is the relevant code from the page source.

.alt2, .alt2Active
{
	background: #D0B98D url(/forum/images/custom/bg_alt2.gif) repeat;
	color: #000000;
}
.alt2 a:link, .alt2Active a:link
{
	color: #003366;
	text-decoration: underline;
}
.alt2 a:visited, .alt2Active a:visited
{
	color: #003366;
	text-decoration: underline;
}
.alt2 a:hover, .alt2 a:active, .alt2Active a:hover, .alt2Active a:active
{
	color: #C60000;
	text-decoration: underline;
}

.......

.thead
{
	background: #424039 url(/forum/images/gradients/gradient_thead.gif) repeat-x top left;
	color: #EEEEEE;
	font: bold 11px tahoma, verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
}
.thead a:link
{
	color: #FFFF88;
	text-decoration: underline;
}
.thead a:visited
{
	color: #FFFF88;
	text-decoration: underline;
}
.thead a:hover, .thead a:active
{
	color: #EEEEEE;
	text-decoration: underline;
}

.......

<table class="tborder" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="1" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
	<tr>
	<td class="tcat" align="center" colspan="6"><div>Today's Events</div></td>
	</tr>

	<tr>
	<td class="alt2" align="center" colspan="6">

		<table class="tborder" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="1" border="0" width="100%" align="center">

			<tr>

			<td class="thead" align="left">

				<div><img src="IMAGEPATH" class="inlineimg" alt="" border="0" /> <a href="URL"><strong>LINKED TEXT</strong></a></div>

			</td>

thead is applied to a table cell within another cell that uses alt2. LINKED TEXT is showing the link color from alt2 instead of thead (from the parent page element instead of the nearer child).

Should not thead's link colors override alt2 in this code? I can't figure out why this isn't working... I want LINKED TEXT to use the link colors from thead.