I like Telerik Components a lot (altough more and more I like Kendo UI) anyway seems to me that if you want to get the value on the status you could use this
string itemValue = dataItem["ColumnUniqueName"].Text;
//no need to convert :)
Take a look at the Documentation for the RadGrids... http://www.telerik.com/help/aspnet-ajax/grid-accessing-cells-and-rows.html