If statement within while no showing empty tag

building a custom site for non-profit. have a hang up on the search page.

here is what I have... It shows results but does not show anything for empty results. I can not figure this one out.

while($rowitem = mysqli_fetch_array($results)) {

     If (empty($results))  
      {    

   echo 'NO RESULTS';


      }
     Else
     {
        echo  "<div>"; ..... 


there is a lot of code past this that works.

I appreciate any help that anyone can provide. I am sure it is something simple that I am screwing up.