I think I see what is happening. It appears the scripts are being placed in the wrong order. I moved:
<?php require_once('Connections/PowerCMSConnection.php'); ?>
<?php
//WA Database Search Include
require_once("WADbSearch/HelperPHP.php");
?>
To the front of the line and it appears to be working. My template already had a connection script so it was placing the code before the connection. Seems like it should know better than to do that.