How can I have multiple loops on one page in Wordpress?

I am using a nice jquery slideshow plugin I found and trying to get it to work into m开发者_开发技巧y Wordpress template. I have tried the code below in various formats but I can't seem to get it the way I want.

The first part is where the title and content of the post reads into the slider, using a specific category. I have 3 of these sections:

<div class="details_wrapper">
<div class="details">
<div class="detail">
<?php query_posts('cat_ID=7&showposts=1');
if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();?>
<h2 class="Lexia-Bold"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>">
<?php the_title() ?></a><?php the_excerpt(); ?></h2>
<?php endwhile; endif;
?>
</div><!-- /detail -->

<div class="detail">
<?php query_posts('cat_ID=8&showposts=1');
if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();?>
<h2 class="Lexia-Bold"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>">
<?php the_title() ?></a><?php the_excerpt(); ?></h2>
<?php endwhile; endif;
?>
</div><!-- /detail -->

<div class="detail">
<?php query_posts('cat_ID=9&showposts=1');
if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();?>
<h2 class="Lexia-Bold"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>">
<?php the_title() ?></a><?php the_excerpt(); ?></h2>
<?php endwhile; endif;
?>
</div><!-- /detail -->
</div><!-- /details -->
</div>

Now this actually works, but I just need it to post the title and excerpt from one of the posts from the category noted. I was reading that I may need to add the wp_reset_query(); line somewhere to destroy the previous loop's query, but I'm not sure.

Here's the second part of the code where the post's featured image is retrieved:

<div class="item item_1">
<?php query_posts('cat_ID=7&posts_per_page=1'); ?>
<?php the_post_thumbnail( 'single-post-thumbnail' ); ?>
</div><!-- /item -->

<div class="item item_2">
<?php query_posts('cat_ID=8&posts_per_page=1'); ?>
<?php the_post_thumbnail( 'single-post-thumbnail' ); ?>
</div><!-- /item -->

<div class="item item_3">
<?php query_posts('cat_ID=9&posts_per_page=1'); ?>
<?php the_post_thumbnail( 'single-post-thumbnail' ); ?>
</div>

Any help would be greatly appreciated :) Here's an example.

Have you tried using...

query_posts('cat_ID=9&posts_per_page=1');

Or I have used get_post before as while to get certain amount of post like so...

 <?php
 global $post;
 $myposts = get_posts('posts_per_page=1&numberposts=-1&category=1');
 foreach($myposts as $post) :
 ?>
<h6><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h6>
<?php setup_postdata($post);?>
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</div>

If its just one post you want you wouldn't really need the foreach or while loop.

I used the method Tianbo84 suggested above both to query the posts AND the featured images from that post to finish the job :) Thanks Tianbo84! To my understanding, the get_posts and <?php endforeach; ?> lines were key... like opening a query and then closing it once the data was retrieved.