Push button on screen with subfile

Push button on screen with subfile:

Yes, I know green screen is old-school. But I am old-school, too, so its OK. :)

I have a 5250 screen with two subfiles - the left subfile lists a few states, and when a user selects one of those states, then the right-side subfile is populated with cities from that state. Then, the user can select one or many of those cities from the second subfile. I did this just as a demo of the use of radio buttons, check boxes, and scroll bars in an ordinary 5250 green screen. It works decently. A screen shot is at http://www.martinvt.com/Subfiles/Two_Subfiles/two_subfiles.html

I was unable to add push buttons to the Footer of the screen and read them. Since I couldn't make it work, that probably means I don't understand what is happening, and therefore the following explanation may be very, very wrong. There are four record on the screen, three with elements that are input-capable. But it appears to me that only one record can be input-capable at a time. When I have an exfmt line, only the elements on that record are read. The result is that a user can not click the push buttons if either subfile is active.

My question is: is it possible to read more than one record at a time?