DataBound ComboBox Text Cleared after losing focus

The ComboBox is dropdown style, if user type in something not on the list and try to move the focus away from the combobox, the text area is cleared right away. The Text value still was available within the LostFocus event handler, but after that it is gone. Any one know how to avoid the Text being cleared out?

End up saving the Text value in a form variable and retrieve it later from that variable-kind of clumsy but good enough for now. Any better way doing this still plz post here.