When I drag on the bottom of the clip to select an area, I can see that that section is "selected" as a region of the clip.
 
Then when I go to click "Region FX"...nothing happens.  The other tabs open drop down menus, but NOT the region FX.
 
I will say I do NOT have an older version of V-vocal on this computer or Melodyne has NOT been registered as yet.
I thought when I opened up Melodyne for the first time, I would be prompted to register.  (then I'd like to upgrade to *Editor* as well...   hopefully the 15 day $149 offer is still happening).
 
I'm missing something, that made me come to the forums to ask.
thanks!

I think you answered your own question. If you don't have VV and Melodyne you don't have a region effect to apply.
In other words I think when you register Melodyne then it will show up. I am no expert but that is my hunch.

Something is not right. IIRC, you should have been guided through the licensing process for Melodyne when it was first run. Assuming you are running 64bit SONAR and Melodyne go to
"C:\Program Files\Celemony\Melodyne Singletrack" and run the "Melodyne singletrack.exe". Then register with  Help > License. Upon licensing you should get the option to upgrade. There is also an email sent by Celemony with the offer. Should you fail to get the upgrade offer, email Celemony.

with the above posts...realized I didn't have a Celemony folder either.  It wasn't installed on my initial X3 installation.  Did a custom install for Celemony only.  After the opening .exe file, it offered the $149 upgrade, good for 15 days, which was fairly easy to do as well. 
Sometimes you just have to come hear to the forums and blab to the wind on novice mistakes.   Will say that coming from 7PE and WinXP...Sonar X3 and Win8 is a tad different these first few sessions.  My first Melodyne *attempt* was pretty horrid, using a bounced TruePno MIDI clip (to audio) as a source file.  I'm sure things will only get better!