Hi,

Try the following formula:

=index(A1:C4,match("Lunch",A1:A4,0),1)

Hope this helps.

--
Regards,

Ashsih Mathur
Microsoft Excel MVP
www.ashishmathur.com

"j.ruderman" wrote in message
...
I need a formula, such as lookup, to extract data from an unsorted column.
In
this case i'm tring to find the start time for the lunch period.

A B C
random text 7:00a 10:00a
random text 10:00a 12:00p
Lunch 12:00p 1:00p
random text 1:00p 3:00p

=lookup("lunch",A:A,B:B) wont work because A:A is not sorted.

Thanks