jQuery UI Select and first selected option not appearing

jQuery UI Select and first selected option not appearing

Hello, long time reader, first time poster.
Trying to get a jQuery select to display the selected="selected" option's value as its initial "placeholder" text. Like "Choose Category" as an example.

I have another jQuery select on the same page working just fine in the exact same setup like this:

  1.     $("#mainlanguage").selectmenu({ width: '100%' });

  2.     $('#ddCategoryFilter').selectmenu();

The second select menu works but does not show any "placeholder" text even though the first <option> does in fact have a selected="selected" attribute.

Has anyone ran into this? I've spent hours on this now, any help would be greatly appreciated.