adding button controls dynamically in side a tableCell in a table within a placeholder can't get handler to fire

as one stage of a web page a table is built with text in several cells followed on each row by a cell with a button control in it. The button.ID is set to a row identifying value.
Dim tcselect As TableCell = New TableCell() Dim btnSelect As Button = New Button() btnSelect.ID = myReader("ident").ToString() btnSelect.Text = "Select" AddHandler btnSelect.Click, AddressOf RegistrantSelected tcselect.Controls.Add(btnSelect) tr.Cells.Add(tcselect)

Buttons show up in table, but when clicked, the dynamic portion of the web page disappears.

as a test the handler just puts the Button ID in a Label that staically exists on the page. That code is never executed...
I do not want to use dataviews or other methods bound to data. I want to resolve this method...

Sub RegistrantSelected(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs) Dim b As Button b = sender lbl1.Text = b.I ...