I still don't understand why the valign tag isn't being spit out just like all the others. thanks for the help!

Since you show no code that indicates how "all the others" are printed, how are we supposed to know?

also (from the OP. emphasis mine):

valign seems like it's printing out alignment at the bottom instead of top of the file.

I interpreted that as "the text in the cell is aligned to the bottom instead of the top". (Also note that CGI scripts usually don't print to a file at all). Since you don't provide the HTML output, and only the barest minimum of code, and your description problem appeared to be HTML related, how do you suppose we can help you?

Please read how (not) to ask a question.