Is there a way to hand-code a reference to a block?, in a .tpl file?
I'm guessing the down vote to what probably should be the correct answer to this post is b/c the answer did not have any code.

The way to render a block is:

&lt;?php
  //D7
    $block = module_invoke('module_name', 'block_view', 'block_delta');
    print render($block['content']);
?&gt;


That can be placed in the template file that you want the block to show. See here for information on what the vars are in that snippet of code.