View State for Custom DropDownList control

I'm having an issue maintaining a selected value on a custom DropDownList control. I figured if the viewstate property was enabled on the base control, everything would be all set, i've found that isn't the case. I think another question I have is maybe I should just be using the Request object to get/set the values? My control i开发者_开发问答s as follows.

[DefaultProperty("Text")]
[ToolboxData("<{0}:TicketStatusDropdownControl runat=server></{0}:TicketStatusDropdownControl>")]
public class TicketStatusDropdownControl : DropDownList
{

    private string _defaultValue = string.Empty;
    private string _selectedItem = string.Empty;
    private string _selectedValue = string.Empty;

    protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer)
    {
        if (_defaultValue != string.Empty)
        {
            this.Items.Add(new ListItem(_defaultValue));
        }

        foreach (string item in TicketWorkflowStates.getWorkflowStates())
        {
            this.Items.Add(new ListItem(item));
        }

        base.Render(writer);
    }



}

Try overriding the LoadViewState() and SaveViewState() methods - set and retrieve ViewState values there?