Thank you Steven,
We have so many categories, and 3 different pages of the website search only among select “parent” categories, that I don’t think your elegant solution would work for us.
What I think we will do next is have the “categories” text copied into the description box. This way, the categories will be keyword searchable.
Then, we can modify the template to no longer show the “categories” text field, as this will be redundant to the Descriptions text area.
Thank you Steven and wish you a healthy 2018.