FINALLY, someone with an answer!
https://blogging-oriented.blogspot.com/2007/09/fixing-and-problem-in-wordpress.html
Long story short, newer versions of WP use a different character set; there are three options to fix.
(1) Get rid of the couple lines of code calling for the set
(2) Dig around in MySQL to repair
(3) Use an installable tool that will fix the problem, converting the set within the database.
I’m opting for the last one, and if it works, I’ll report back here.
