For the life of me I can not get a combination that makes the first post on the home page full with the rest excerpts.

ATO->Configure EXCERPTS
set 'Posts or excerpts on HOME page?' to 'Only Excerpts'
set 'Show the first X posts on HOME page as full posts?' to '1'
make sure you don't have a manual excerpt for the post

Thanks. That is exactly what I did to no avail. I dug deeper and it appears it is a plug in called Post Teaser that has taken over the settings.

The plug in does not show in the plug in list and I cannot figure out how to disable it- does that happen with other plug ins?

Ah got it. It was a combination of plug ins-Instant WP set up was controlling Post Teaser. Disabling the first also fixed the second.