JSF 2 : Status-Description selectonemenu

JSF 2 : Status-Description selectonemenu

I have 2 selectonemenu elements, one that contains the status of the
request, and the other contains a description of that status.
Im trying to implement it as follows :
I have a class called status that has 2 fields : status & description.
the selectonemenu would be :
<h:outputText id="requestStatusH" value="Status : " />
<h:selectOneMenu id="statusDD" value="#{exApp.status}">
<f:selectItems value="#{exApp.statusList}" />
</h:selectOneMenu>
and my bean would be :
private RequestStatus status;
private List<RequestStatus> statusList;
//Getters + Setters
when i select a status in one selectonemenu i want the corresponding
description to appear in another disabled selectonemenu.
The problem is that im not able to even get the selected value in to the
backing bean variables. after i submit the page, nothing is happening.
I tried to look into the stackoverflow selectonemenu guide, and i couldnt
find anything about converters.
any help would be highly appreciated.