For setting values in a drop-down box, you can create your select box then loop through each value to find which item in the list has the value you want to pre-select.
In this example, "Alabama" is selected. In the code for this example, below, line 9 could easily be dynamically determined from a database pull, request.form, etc.
<form id="form1" name="form1" action="" method="post">
<select name="state">
<option value="none">Please select a state</option>
<option value="alabama">Alabama</option>
<option value="arkansas">Arkansas</option>
</select>
<script>
var i=0;
var selectedState = 'alabama';
while ((document.forms("form1").state.options[i].value != selectedState) && (i < document.forms("form1").state.options.length))
{i++;}
if (i < document.forms("form1").state.options.length)
{document.forms("form1").state.selectedIndex = i;}
</script>
</form>