unable to enter a region that accepts input

I am using Cube as a minimalist front-end theme and have been unable to assign a region and have it display anything entered into it.
These are the steps I am taking:

• added to cube.info regions[prefooter] = "Prefooter"
• Added to page.tpl.php immediately after the print statement for content region and before the end div statement print $prefooter

I do get the display Prefooter | No contents in this region in /admin/build/block and I am able to "assign" a block to it, it does not display. Perhaps I am missing a step and someone can guide me.