Changing Signup form

I want the subscriber to be able to input the State manually as they could be from a number of different countries which call them by different names such as State/County/Region/Province.

This is the code in the sign-up form:
--------
<tr>
<th><b><label for="state">State</label></b><br>
<small></small></th>
<td nowrap><select name=state id=state size=1>
{html_options options=$config.state_options selected=$smarty.request.state}
</select>
</td>
-------
How do I modify this so it allows a manual entry which will add the input to the correct field in the database?

Thanks Alex,

That didn't work - it returned Smarty Errors.

So I tried this:

<tr>
<th><b><label for="state">State</label></b><br>
<small></small></th>
<td nowrap><input name=state id=state value="{$smarty.request.state}" size=15 maxlength=25>
</td>
</tr>

Which did.

Tell me, what is the purpose of the "|escape" which follows similar entries - for city for example.

Speaking of the signup form ...

Nevermind this message