Building <form> From Recordset

I have a database of quotes on my website that uses an Access 97
database (I'm cheap...I have an old copy of MS Office). I have one page
that builds a form <select> from a SQL statement that looks like this:
SELECT DISTINCT last, first FROM quotes ORDER BY last, first;

The results are 1,250 records from a 3,700 record table.

I loop through the records, using each to build an <option> for the
<select>. When loading the page, it gets to the <select> and then it's
like someone issued a response.end, because it just dies after about 3
seconds. and I get an incomplete page; looking in view source it is
literally truncated right before the form <select>.

Of course it works at home, but not on my "production" site.

I've tried all kinds of things like executing a stored Access query as
adCmdStoredProc, but it didn't help. I'm not even sure if that method
was even any faster when I ran it at home.

Is there anything else that you folks know of that I could try, or am I
just going to have to bite the bullet and come up with an alternative
way to let my users select the source of the quote?