*facepalm*, lol.

That did it Steve!

I wrote a smaller version of my grid that illustrates the issues I have, in the process I was able to identify what the problem is so there is no need to post it :).

Now, the problem lies in the loadComplete event–in particular the object that is passed to the handler.

Did you try any of the jqGrid events found at http://www.trirand.com/jqgridwiki/doku.php?id=wiki:events?  Maybe the loadComplete or gridComplete events will work for you.

Alright I think you need to go back to the wiki and read the introductory material on jqGrid.

Thank you Tony!

Mark, I ended up changing both the language column names by adding a prefix and changing the id input parameter to row_id as soon as the execution enters the server code.