YUK.
If you want to hand code, try a good text editor like PSPad, Notepad++, or Context (all free). Notepad sucks, as you will see... if only for the highlighters available, using a good editor is a must.
But for the most part, a WYSIWYG HTML editor is much easier to use - Download Nvu for a really decent and very simple html editor. It is much like Word, other than learning tables/properties and such... Load your page in NVu and you can cause the color of the linked text to be anything you like:
Highlight the text of the link, 2click on the foreground color in the toolbar, and select a color... easy-peasy.
One can still get to the code page if one desires, but it is MUCH easier to DO first, then look at the code for understanding.
a href="mailto:ABCNET@comcast.net">ABCNET@comcast.net
The email goes blank and can't be seen, no matter where on the template I put it.
The original webpage designer must have built in something to keep email addresses from being displayed. It's the only answer. Time to go back to the drawing board with another template and try again.