Add categories to a page with out using Custom Post Types

If you don’t want to attach the default post category taxonomy, you can always create a new one specifically for pages. Insert this into your functions.php file:

add_action( 'init', 'create_page_taxonomies' );
function create_page_taxonomies() {
    register_taxonomy('page_category', 'page', array(
        'hierarchical' => true,
        'labels' => array(
            'name' => _x( 'Page Category', 'taxonomy general name' ),
            'singular_name' => _x( 'page-category', 'taxonomy singular name' ),
            'search_items' =>  __( 'Search Page Categories' ),
            'all_items' => __( 'All Page Categories' ),
            'parent_item' => __( 'Parent Page Category' ),
            'parent_item_colon' => __( 'Parent Page Category:' ),
            'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Page Category' ),
            'update_item' => __( 'Update Page Category' ),
            'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New Page Category' ),
            'new_item_name' => __( 'New Page Category Name' ),
            'menu_name' => __( 'Page Categories' )
        ),
        'public' => true,
        'rewrite' => array(
            'slug' => 'page-category',
            'with_front' => false,
            'hierarchical' => true
        )
    ));
}

This is a fairly bare-bones new taxonomy, and there are plenty of other options available, of which there is a complete listing in the WP Codex.

UPDATE:

I believe that this is what the whole loop would look like:

<?php
    wp_reset_query();
    $query = new WP_Query(
        array(
            'post_type' => 'page',
            'tax_query' => array(
                array( 
                    'taxonomy' => 'page_category',
                    'field' => 'term_id',
                    'terms' => 541
                )
            )
        )
    );
    if ( $query->have_posts() ) :
        while ( $query->have_posts() ) : $query->the_post(); ?>
            <div>
<?php
            if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) :
                the_post_thumbnail( array(150,150) );
            else : ?>
                <img class="alignleft" src="https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/253133/<?php echo get_bloginfo("template_url"); ?>/images/empty_150_150_thumb.gif" width="150" height="150" />
<?php
            endif; ?>
                <div class="entry">
                    <h3 class="blog_header"><a href="<?php echo get_permalink(); ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h3>
                    <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
                    <a class="button_link" href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><span>Read More</span></a>
                </div>
            </div>
<?php
        endwhile;
    endif; ?>