Thanks so much for helping! That does exactlly what I was trying to do. But something I didn't expect happens now. The combo box value still resets to default. I thought I could just use <?php echp $_POST['cmbSelect']; ?> but that killed the page and using $selectedDepartment is what reverts it to the default value. It's not a huge deal, but it could be confusing if you don't remember what item you had done the search on...say I searched in Billing, but when I got to page 4 of the Billing Department, it would have been reset to Accounting...so mindgames so say the least. Your help would be MUCH appreciated again. THANKS! A little premature happiness I'm afraid. When I went and check it, the value in the combo box changing alters the results of the query. So if I search for a department, then the values do query corerectly, but if I move to the next page, the combo box resets. Now if I go back to page one, the values displayed are for that default combo value instead of what I serached for.