ok - so i'm trying to create a custom view that looks something like this

CA PA NY

California
-----------
Los Angeles, CA
name
contact Info

San Francisco, CA
name
contact info


Pennsylvania
-----------
Scranton, PA
name
contact info


New York
-----------
New York, NY
name
contact info

Brooklyn, NY
name
contact info

Albany, NY
name contact info


whereas the state abbreviations target to the full state name and only states with contacts appear.  I also have an almost identical requirement where month/year jumps to a list of events happening in that month/year combination, so I would prefer a general solution over a module that does exactly one, the other or both.

I created a content type with a state selection and a view to group them.  The problems I had with this were
1. In the pull down I can have abbreviation or full name, not both (in custom cms apps i've built i used state abbreviation in the value and name in the display thereby getting both - it would be great to have this)
2. When the view groups items rather than creating a header for the grouping it puts them together but repeats it every time. 
3. it's actually putting the state in twice - once above the listing and once between location and contact info

Is this all stuff I can fix through theming, am I configuring it incorrectly or am I going down the wrong road entirely?

this is the actual output I'm getting - no theming done yet: