NEWBIE: a pretty simple search form problem

Hello!

I have a problem I have made a simple search form where you can select a category, region and enter some free text.

My view looks like this:

<%= form_tag %>   <table>     <tr>       <td>Category:</td>         <td><%= select("search_item", "category", JobCategory.active_categories.collect {|c| [c.title, c.id]}, { :include_blank => true }) %></td>      </tr>      <tr>        <td>Region:</td>         <td> <%= select("search_item", "region", Region.active_regions.collect {|r| [r.title, r.id]}, {:include_blank => true } ) %></td>       </tr>       <tr valign="top">           <td>Free text:</td>           <td><%= text_field("search_item","phrase", "size" => 40) %></td>          </tr>       <tr>           <td>...</td>            <td><%= submit_tag(" Search ") %></td>          </tr>         </table>   <%= end_form_tag %>

The search_item is just a simple class with the attributes category, region and phrase.

Every example I have seen requires to create an object of a model but I don't want to do this. I just want the code to fill my search_item object with the correct values. Any ideas?