Appending to list only returning values if previous page element interaction

[Max Russell]

In a test I've written (Robot Framework and Selenium), I'm trying to get a values from a row and append them to a list for later use:

${highlight}=     Get Web Element    css:BLAH
# Highlight is a little interaction to highlight on screen while debugging.
Highlight    ${highlight}

${lowtablevalues}=    Create List
${low_value_1}=    Get Text    css:BLAH

Log    ${lowtablevalues}

If I run the test with the Highlight step, the list with values is returned.
If I comment out that step, an empty list is returned.

Is there something else I'd need to do when creating the list?