Okay; I found something that works pretty well. Not perfect and I will have to noodle with it a bit to make it responsive to narrowing/expanding the page, but it's a start. It requires the ftcolumnflow script that I mentioned/linked in the comment above.
<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="ftcolumnflow/src/FTColumnflow.js"></script>
<style>
body { margin: 0px; padding: 0; text-align: center;}
p {text-align: left;}
img {width: 100%;}
#viewport { width: 950px; height: 400px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}
#flowedContent, #fixedContent { margin: 0px; visibility: hidden; }
body { font: 14px Helvetica,arial,freesans,clean,sans-serif; color: #333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.0; }
a { color: #4183C4; text-decoration: none; }
a:hover { text-decoration: underline; }
a:active { outline: none; }
ul {
margin: 0px;
padding-left: 0px;
border: solid thin black;
}
.listhead {text-align: left; color: white; background-color: #004000;}
li {
line-height: 1.0;
text-align: left;
list-style: none;
}
li.c1 {
background-color: #d6d6d6;
}
li.c2 {
background-color: #ffffff;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="viewport">
<div id="target"></div>
</div>
<div id="flowedContent">
<p class="nowrap">Vestibulum gravida metus vel est vehicula porta ac a nisi. Integer eleifend leo non lectus sodales lacinia. Vestibulum consequat elit sit amet purus varius, id semper augue tincidunt. Quisque vestibulum, sem in imperdiet ultrices, quam arcu pretium mi, eget bibendum felis lacus convallis tellus. Ut id fermentum nisl. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut ante ex, pharetra id consectetur in, molestie a arcu.</p>
<ul class="nowrap"><li class="listhead">group_1</li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_1(1)">link_1(1)</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="nowrap"><li class="listhead">group_2</li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_2(1)">link_2(1)</a></li>
<li class="c2"><a target=_blank href="link_2(2)">link_2(2)</a></li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_2(3)">link_2(3)</a></li>
<li class="c2"><a target=_blank href="link_2(4)">link_2(4)</a></li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_2(5)">link_2(5)</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="nowrap"><li class="listhead">group_3</li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_3(1)">link_3(1)</a></li>
<li class="c2"><a target=_blank href="link_3(2)">link_3(2)</a></li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_3(3)">link_3(3)</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="nowrap"><li class="listhead">group_4</li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_4(1)">link_4(1)</a></li>
<li class="c2"><a target=_blank href="link_4(2)">link_4(2)</a></li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_4(3)">link_4(3)</a></li>
<li class="c2"><a target=_blank href="link_4(4)">link_4(4)</a></li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_4(5)">link_4(5)</a></li>
</ul>
<p class="nowrap">Vestibulum gravida metus vel est vehicula porta ac a nisi. Integer eleifend leo non lectus sodales lacinia. Vestibulum consequat elit sit amet purus varius, id semper augue tincidunt. Quisque vestibulum, sem in imperdiet ultrices, quam arcu pretium mi, eget bibendum felis lacus convallis tellus. Ut id fermentum nisl. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut ante ex, pharetra id consectetur in, molestie a arcu.</p>
<ul class="nowrap"><li class="listhead">group_5</li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_5(1)">link_5(1)</a></li>
<li class="c2"><a target=_blank href="link_5(2)">link_5(2)</a></li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_5(3)">link_5(3)</a></li>
<li class="c2"><a target=_blank href="link_5(4)">link_5(4)</a></li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_5(5)">link_5(5)</a></li>
<li class="c2"><a target=_blank href="link_5(6)">link_5(6)</a></li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_5(7)">link_5(7)</a></li>
<li class="c2"><a target=_blank href="link_5(8)">link_5(8)</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="nowrap"><li class="listhead">group_6</li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_6(1)">link_6(1)</a></li>
<li class="c2"><a target=_blank href="link_6(2)">link_6(2)</a></li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_6(3)">link_6(3)</a></li>
<li class="c2"><a target=_blank href="link_6(4)">link_6(4)</a></li>
</ul>
<ul class="nowrap"><li class="listhead">group_7</li>
<li class="c1"><a target=_blank href="link_7(1)">link_7(1)</a></li>
<li class="c2"><a target=_blank href="link_7(2)">link_7(2)</a></li>
</ul>
<p class="nowrap">Duis fermentum lorem suscipit arcu tincidunt, at consectetur mi euismod. Mauris ultrices diam ac lectus suscipit mollis. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Cras luctus mauris odio, vel lobortis felis commodo vel..</p>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
var cf = new FTColumnflow('target', 'viewport', {
columnCount: 3,
standardiseLineHeight: false,
pagePadding: 0,
});
cf.flow(document.getElementById('flowedContent'), document.getElementById('fixedContent'));
</script>
</body>
</html>