Thanks Reed.
At the top of the page I have these:
<cfparam name="FORM.fieldname" default=""> (for each field)
And I'm using the built-in <cfinput> validation, which is why I'm using the <cfinput>. Well, that and I like <cfselect>.
If I was better with JS, I'd probably roll my own, but the <cfinput> validation has worked fine for the last three versions of this form, with no complaints from users.
So you're saying that instead of doing the params that way, I could do the query first? Then do this:
<cfparam name="FORM.fiieldname" default="queryname.columname"> ?