After giving it some more thought the full state list is a good idea but becomes a little daunting when you must also add the large amount of international regions/countries as well. This site is all about the RC "Universe" so to limit it to just the US states doesn't ecompass the other countries or regions in the world. Too limiting as this hobby crosses all geography.

Perhaps an events forum which has a more "open" format would be a solution. I'm not really sure but you can see the problem if you had a list of 300 or 400 forums by state and countries (provinces..) it can get out of hand.

If I make just an events forum one can search by state, country, region using the search feature since you can search all the forums or just specific ones. This would leave the field completely open for everybody on the planet. along with the calendar this may be the best solution but I am open still to ideas that may work well.