PHP/MYSQL/Smarty + FCKEditor

I have an old website (circa 2004) that has been using plain textareas in various post/get forms that handle the editing of news posts and event details. By request of the client, they have asked me to update these textareas with a word-type interface. That's where FCKEditor came into play! The site currently uses the Smarty template system in conjunction with php/mysql database. I am having a problem where the data from mysql is being posted correctly, but not displayed. I have been through about 30+ pages of forum search results to no avail.

Here's the original a_editevent.tpl textareas:

{$header}
<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" id="ntbase">
<form action="editevent.php" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">

<snip>

<tr><td valign="top"><b>Short description:</b></td><td><textarea name="shortdesc" rows=3 cols=50>{$shortdesc}</textarea></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top"><b>Long description:</b></td><td><textarea name="longdesc" rows=10 cols=50>{$longdesc}</textarea></td></tr>

<snip>

{$footer}

And here is the relevant part of the new a_editevent.tpl with the FCK Editor markup:

<tr><td valign="top"><b>Short description:</b></td>
<td width="435">
{php}

$oFCKeditor = new FCKeditor('shortdesc');
$oFCKeditor->BasePath = '../fckeditor/';
$oFCKeditor->ToolbarSet = 'NT66';
$oFCKeditor->Value = $shortdesc;
$oFCKeditor->Create();

{/php}
</td></tr>

<tr><td valign="top"><b>Long description:</b></td>
<td width="435">
{php}

$oFCKeditor = new FCKeditor('longdesc');
$oFCKeditor->BasePath = '../fckeditor/';
$oFCKeditor->ToolbarSet = 'NT66';
$oFCKeditor->Value = $longdesc;
$oFCKeditor->Create();

{/php}
</td></tr>

And here is the editevent.php file which drives the form:

<?
require_once('users.inc');
require_once('init.php');

<snip>

// Form submission
if ($editp || $_POST['editp_x'] || $new_event) {
   $shortdesc = addslashes($shortdesc);
   $longdesc = addslashes($longdesc);
   $name = addslashes($name);
   $start = strftime("%Y-%m-%d %T",mktime($start_Hour,$start_Minute,0,$start_Month,$start_Day,$start_Year));
   $end = strftime("%Y-%m-%d %T",mktime($end_Hour,$end_Minute,0,$end_Month,$end_Day,$end_Year));
   $open = ($open == "on") ? 1 : 0;

<snip>

if ($new) $smarty->assign('new',1);
else {
   // grab news info
   $info = mysql_query("select * f.r.o.m events where id=$id",$link);
   $grab = mysql_fetch_assoc($info);

   $grab['name'] = stripslashes($grab['name']);
   $grab['shortdesc'] = stripslashes($grab['shortdesc']);
   $grab['longdesc'] = stripslashes($grab['longdesc']);
   $grab['start'] = strtotime($grab['start']);
   $grab['end'] = strtotime($grab['end']);
   $smarty->assign($grab);
}
$smarty->display("a_editevent.tpl");
?>

I believe there is something wrong with my syntax for FCKEditor's $oFCKeditor->Value setting inside of this Smarty template file. As you can see, {$shortdesc} worked in the textarea to retrieve and set the value for editing when using a plain textarea, however, I cannot find the magical combo of syntax to make this work using FCKEditor. Any help would be most appreciated, as I would love to get this working for them!

Thanks,
Ray