No solutions anywhere on the web worked (short of one person's ridiculous suggestion of a complete reinstall of KDE!). Then I found this great suggestion from Mirosław Zalewski on the Debian Bugs list:
Problem can be solved by regenerating KDE icons cache. This can be done by removing /var/tmp/kdecache-${USER}/icon-cache.kcache file and relogging into your account. Then all icons will be in place. This also solves generic-x11 icon problem...So, open a regular terminal (not root) and type:
rm /var/tmp/kdecache-${USER}/icon-cache.kcacheLogout and login again. All fixed! I had to change my icon back to the regular Writer icon because I'd manually altered it, but it stayed put this time after the save. Thanks Miroslaw.