set a selected value for a drop down in php

[devil_inc]

hi everyone this is my first post here and i hope you guys can help me out with this.....
will tell my layout first and then my requirement...
i have a dropdown which is populated with values from a table in the database.....just a normal dropdown....
what i want to do is when the user selects a value and then submits form, then when the user comes back to edit the form i want the value of the dropdown to be the one the user entered in the form not the listing which will be there by default for a new form.....what i did is i set the value of dropdown to the value if it exists but below that i have my query for drop down so it doesnt seem to work....any help would be greatly appreciated.....
below is my code

<td width="16%" style="padding:0px 0px 0px 10px"><input type="radio" value='1' name="notresolved"> Resolved</td>
        <td width="17%" style="padding:0px 0px 0px 10px"><input type="radio" value='2' name="notresolved"> Not Resolved</td>
        <td width="32%" style="padding:2px 0px 0px 5px"> Set Importance&nbsp;
          <select style="width: 125px;" name="setimportance" value="<?php echo $importance_level;?>" >
        <?php 
					//to get the importance level drop down from importance_level tabe
					$query="SELECT * FROM importance_level";
					$result = mysql_query ($query);

					while($result_row=mysql_fetch_array($result)){//Array or records stored in $result_row
						echo "<option value=$result_row[importance_level_id]>$result_row[importance_level]</option>";
					}

					?>
    </select></td>

[Cetera]

You could use cookie, session for this or other storage method if your visitor/user is online/logged in on the page.

If going for session/cookie you would do:

<?php
while($result_row=mysql_fetch_array($result)){
if ( $_COOKIE['MY_COOKIE'] == $result_row[importance_level_id )
{
echo "<option SELECTED=\"SELECTED\" value=$result_row[importance_level_id]>$result_row[importance_level]</option>"; 
}
else
{
echo "<option value=$result_row[importance_level_id]>$result_row[importance_level]</option>"; 
} 
?>

make sure you set your cookie/session when user post the form.