Well, I know I'm not the brightest bulb in the lamp, but I stumbled upon an answer that had been frustrating me.

A program called Bible Desktop is invoked from a shell script.  Opening the file manager, navigating to the file, and double-clicking on it starts it just fine.  But what a pain!  I want it in the dock.  

When the app is open, no icon appears in the dock.  In desperation, I went to File Manager and highlighted the file, right-clicked and sent it to the desktop, thinking that at least I can invoke it from a desktop icon.  But when I clicked on the desktop icon, Bible Desktop appeared in the dock!  Right clicking on the dock icon allowed me to dock the app, and now it's in the dock!

Well, perhaps others will be helped by this.  Maybe this is something everyone already knew, but it's new to me.

Best.