Fun with jqGrid

We've recently started using jqGrid, a jQuery-based data grid tool, for presenting search results. I picked up a tip for adding a custom caption to the rows-per-page dropdown (which is controlled by the rowlist[] array). Unfortunately, that bit of code is subject to a one-off bug in that it is not idempotent. So when it's used in a loadComplete event handler (which fires each time the grid is [server-side] sorted or otherwise reloaded), I found that I had to write some first-time-only guard logic. Here's an abridged version of my code that sets up the grid, with a few other hacks to work around some deficiencies in jqGrid.

var dataGrid;
var firstTime = true;

jQuery(document).ready(function(){

   //set up our own grid wrapper
   dataGrid = new CLIENT.DataGrid.DataGrid('#postList');

   //set up the main grid
   jQuery('#postList').jqGrid({
       url: BASE_URL,
       datatype: 'xml',
       mtype: 'GET',
       colNames: ['Status', 'Headline', 'Byline(s)', 'Date'],
       colModel: [
           {name: 'status',  width: 80,   sortable: false},
           {name: 'headline',width: 290,  index: 1},
           {name: 'bylines', width: 148,  sortable: false},
           {name: 'date',    width: 150,  index: 2},
       ],
       rowList: [10,20,30,50],
       pager: '#postPager',
       pgbuttons: true,
       rowNum: 20,
       loadonce: false,
       viewrecords: true,
       recordtext: 'Posts {0} - {1} of {2}',
       pgtext: 'Page {0} of {1}',
       emptyrecords: 'No posts to display',
* * *
       loadComplete: function () {
           jQuery('select[class="ui-pg-selbox"]').attr({title: 'Posts per page'}); //label for rowList-based dropdown
           if (firstTime) {
               jQuery('#postPager .ui-pg-selbox').closest('td').after('Posts per page');
               firstTime = false;
           }
           jQuery('#postPager_center').attr({style: 'white-space: pre; width: 450px;'});  //override jqGrid's width
           jQuery('#jqgh_status').attr({className: 'nosort'});  //sortable: attribute doesn't clear the ui-jqgrid-sortable class for us
           jQuery('#jqgh_bylines').attr({className: 'nosort'});
       }
   });
});