It looks like it works now. I can reboot and never go into KDE, and I can connect with the machine via ssh, and also access RStudio Server on the machine with a web browser. Not sure why I wasn't able to connect on the first reboot after your suggestion - perhaps I typed something wrong.
Thanks again - David -- David Bruce For all your software needs, visit The Apt Store: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main