Anyone that might be interested I do believe I have solved my problem. The ignitor wire (8mm sparkplug wire) has a break in it somewhere which was allowing the higher voltage to the ignitor but was not allowing the low voltage back to the contol panel to keep the gas valve open. This break was also somehow tripping the GFCI circuit breaker. I replaced the wire with a "temp" wire and all is well. I hope this post helps someone down the road, thanks.

rusty