  We present the initial results of a 40 night contiguous ground-based campaign
of time series photometric observations of a 1.39 sq. deg field located within
the NASA Kepler mission field of view. The goal of this pre-launch survey was
to search for transiting extrasolar planets and to provide independent
variability information of stellar sources. We have gathered a data set
containing light curves of 54,687 stars from which we have created a
statistical sub-sample of 13,786 stars between 14< r <18.5 and have
statistically examined each light curve to test for variability. We present a
summary of our preliminary photometric findings including the overall level and
content of stellar variability in this portion of the Kepler field and give
some examples of unusual variable stars found within. We present a preliminary
catalog of 2,457 candidate variable stars, of which 776 show signs of
periodicity. We also present three potential exoplanet candidates, all of which
should be observable in detail by the Kepler mission.
