Greetings everyone!
Well I paid the $75 and purchased the NFHS Officiating Principles Course. The course is done interactively online and also comes with a nice book called Successful Sports Officiating. After you work your way through the course materials, which I estimate will take me about 20 hours or so, you take a test and they add your name to a national registry.
Go to the following web-site to read about the course and other interesting information:
http://www.ASEP.com
I'm not a sales rep or anything like that but so far I enjoy the course and its a great way to see the big picture of sports officiating.