Today has been one of "those" days.  A co-worker asks for something that sounds easy, but in reality it becomes larger than it ever should have been.  That, my friends, is a recipe for a migraine and a learning opportunity.

The issue that was brought to me was that there are "Active" and "Inactive" items in a DropDownList that needed to be distinct within the list.  They need to be in the same list, but the inactive items need to stand out.

This started me on my fated journey.  I hit Google with a vengeance.  After all, it would be easier to find a solution from someone who has done it before than it would be to create my own, why recreate the wheel, right?

After being denied any good advice (though some of the failed examples that I ran across helped to point me in the right direction), I finally put it to myself to perform this task on my own. 

Let me start out by explaining the data that I am using.  I will be using the Territories table from the Northwood database.  I will be using the RegionID field to determine the color of the text.