Thanks. I found that I only needed to set the selectedindex to "-1" one
time, but after the form was finished loading and set to visible.
aprearantly setting the selected index to -1 doesn't work if the form hasn't
been set to visible yet.  I figured this out be adding a test button and
setting the index to -1 in the button's click event.  This is unfortunate
because all of my form's initialization code is called from the new sub
where I pass in parameters to tell the form what data to populate with, etc.
like this:

private frm as Myform
'========= now from a method
frm = new Myform (PK, flag1, flag2)
frm.visible = true

so I tried a hack work around by executing the code:
Me.cmbGoTo.SelectedIndex = -1
from the forms' visiblechanged event so when the form finally becomes
visible the combo boxes' text is cleared.  this work, but I wouldn't want to
use it as a standard way of doing things because what happens if I need to
change a form's visible property?  the dropdown boxes' indexes will all
change and cause havoc.

can anyone think of a better solution?  it would be great if there was an
event such as form finished loading event if selected index = -1 would work
in such an event.

any good ideas?

Thanks again.