Populate Popup Menu from Database

I have some popup menus and want the items in the menu to be populated from a database. In this case I have a table that contains a listing of departments. I have a page that I can go in and add/delete departments, and want the changes to reflect in the menu the next time you go to the page. I searched for examples and found this: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-general&m=97628169623096&w=2 What is here is beyond my understanding, and seems like it is a little much for what I need. Here is what my database table looks like: Departments department_id department_name I just want to list the department name in the popup. Thanks, Mike