i am struggling with wood choices and staying within the spirit of the competition, soundboard being a issue, obviously spruce is not local and i have a thing for carpathian spruce, Texas is not exactly a hot bed for tone woods , however south of the border is something different with lots of choices including mexican ebony "katalox" for fretboards , so i was thinking of a south of the border theme and wanted to get some thoughts if that seemed fair

That sounds fine to me. After all it is supposed to be "local", and Mexico is more local for you than say, Vermont, despite it being a different country.

As far as the soundboard being a struggle, that why this is called a Challenge. You won't convince me that the Carpathian mountains are local. Doesn't east Texas have a few species of pine? Also, there are a variety of conifers in the mountains of northern Mexico just across the border that would probably work for soundboards, and no doubt have been used for that purpose.