Apache .htaccess help needed

Running Redhat 9. for an Internal website

in /var/www/html
I have my .htaccess file which contains...

---------
AuthUserFile /var/www/html/.htpasswd
AuthName "Username and Password Required"
AuthType Basic

<Limit GET>
require user someuser
</Limit>
--------------

A snippet from my httpd.conf

---------
# AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess
files.
# It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
# Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#
# AllowOverride None
AllowOverride All
#
# Controls who can get stuff from this server.
#
Order allow,deny
Allow from all

</Directory>

#
----


The index.html file in /var/www/html is loaded when users initially
connect to my site. Then they choose whether they want info for
dayshift, swingshift, nightshift, and a variety of other
possibilities.

I have these separated out each group having a subdirectory under
/var/www/html/

What's happening is that the user will hit my site., get the
username/pass prompt... enter the user/psw and ger in.
They make the choice of where they want to go (i.e Dayshift)
which then calls /var/www/html/dayshift/dayshift.html
and before that page loads, the user is again prompted for the
usrname/psw.... After the 2nd entry of name/psw, it's apparently
cached, because they don't have to enter it again until whenever they
hit the site agan later.

My question is.,.. why does it ask again whenever they leave the root
area to go to any other area (only the 1st time)
I have only one .htaccess file and it's in the html root.


Thanks for any help making me less confused

Tony!