This is the way I do this in a program I have. It handles the case that the first, i.e. blank value is selected when nothing is set beforehand...

    ### Execute the region query
    $sth->execute()
    or dienice("585 Couldn't execute statement: " . $sth->errstr);

    print qq!<TR><TD ALIGN="RIGHT">SC region:<SELECT NAME="reg_name">!
+;
    print qq!<OPTION VALUE=""!;
    print qq! SELECTED! unless ($REG_NAME);
    print qq!>ALL REGIONS</OPTION>!;

    while (my @regions = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
        print qq!<OPTION VALUE="$regions[0]"!;
        print qq! SELECTED! if ($regions[0] eq $REG_NAME);
        print qq!>$regions[0]</OPTION>\n!;
    }
    print qq!</SELECT></TD></TR>!;
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-- I'm a solipsist, and so is everyone else. (think about it)