Actually, I think I figured out what I needed to know, but discovered a possible "opportunity" in the software.
It appears that there are the obvious ones of 'O'pen, 'C'losed, and 'M'oved. But, I also discovered that in a case where a closed topic is re-opened, the TOPIC_STATUS is cleared leaving a non-existent status. Don't know if this is on purpose, or a bug.
But, in my reporting, as opposed to doing an IN with O, M, etc., I just now ask for records with a topic status of other than C and it seems to be working the way we like.