Unable to find a checkbox on a datagrid row, no error message

I have a Datagrid with checkboxes in the first column and US State codes in the second column.  I need to save to SQL a 1 if check box is selected and it's State code from the same row. so if users check the first 2 rows, data passed should be in the format of arrays like this :
1,1, AL, AZ

I am having hard time looping through the rows and locating the checkboxes. Code has no error but it never enters the if statement even though first 2 check boxes are checked, it keeps saying selected = false in the local watch window.
Here is a simplified version of my datagrid markup:
<asp:datagrid id="gridState" runat="server" ShowHeader="True" AutoGenerateColumns="False" "> <Columns> <asp:TemplateColumn> <ItemTemplate > <asp:CheckBox ID="chkBoxState" runat ="server" > </asp:CheckBox> </ItemTemplate> & ...