 <p>thanks guys. i ended up setting the value of the option to <code>a</code> (my counter variable in the for loop). then i made the <code>var my_json</code> global. that way, in my onchange function for the select, i just do:</p> <pre><code>var passed_element_number = ($'#my_select_list').val(); var passed_id = my_json[passed_element_number].ID; var passed_otherfield = my_json[passed_element_number].OTHERFIELD; </code></pre> <p>i'm not sure why it wasn't letting me set the who json object as the value for the select option and then get the fields out 1 by 1 (probably my error, or maybe it's not possible), but this works ok....</p>