Pre-select menu item on menu load

[Matteo]

Hello,
is there a way to programmatically select a menu item on menu load?
I mean something like that: after the kendoMenu has been initialized I would like to invoke the "select" event on an item.
Is it possible?

I am using a custom function:

navigationMenu_selectItem("myPage");



function navigationMenu_selectItem(id) {

$("#navigationMenu").find("#" + id).addClass("k-state-selected");

$("#contentPane").load("pages/" + id);

}

Is there a better/simpler way?
Thank you!