Highlighting

I'm tired of googling... This is what I want-
A menu, or something to add to a drop down menu, that will active highlights on the page. What I have is a large section of text and I want users to be able to highlight certain instances by picking them off the menu. For example, if they picked "Ford Prefect" off the list, it would highlight text that I defined Ford to appear in. Then if they picked "Zaphod Beeblebrox", it would highlight texts I defined Zaphod to be in.

I don't just want the word, I want to be able to say which bit is highlighted for each selection.

Thanks!