Highlight(activating?) a specific row in a list

[999alfred comcast net]

I have a project where I periodically update a list tree view. Now when ever I update the list, is there was a row highlighted by a mouse single click, the highlight disappears. Now, I wrote code to be able to identify the old row as the new store is built. But, my question is how is the best way to activate that row?
I looked at 
(void gtk_tree_view_row_activated         (GtkTreeView *tree_view,
                                                         GtkTreePath *path,
                                                         GtkTreeViewColumn *column);

But, How do I get the GtkTreeViewColumn argument? And why is it a column and not a row?

Also, when I use gtk_tree_view_row_activated(), wil it cause the "row_activated" signal to be generated?

tj