Templates as Variables?

[Cheez-It]

Okay... I know the answer is probably here somewhere, but several minutes of searching found nothing.

I'll start with my problem:

I want a different logo in the header for my CMPS front page and for the Forums.

My attempts:

First I figured if I created a custom template (customhead) with the CMPS logo so that I could simply use $customhead in the adv_portal template.

I realized this didn't make the variable when it didn't work...

Second, I looked up " Including External Files" and made a customheader.php file with the same code... Added a new plugin with the code:

ob_start();
include('i tried several things here...');
$customheader = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

using 'forums/customheader.php' 'customheader.php' and 'http... (full link" as I wasn't sure which would be right. None worked.

How do I do this? Basically I just want a duplicate of $header but with a few lines altered and a few removed???

Thanks for any help, it is very much appreciated.

Next, I tried php code with hook in cache template

$custom_header[] = 'custom_header';

making custom_header template and using $custom_header where I needed it...