Thanks for the heads up, I'd already read all the documentation/wiki, which lead me to this forum.
Everything posted for SME with regards to SYSLOG is for setting up SME as a recipient server not a forwarder.
Instead of custom scripts, etc, I found that SPLUNK has created a "universal forwarder" RPM package that can be adapted to run on SME.
If there is somewhere on the site to post a HOWTO; I would be glad to share the information.
I currently have SME 8.x reporting to SPLUNK 6.1.x with no issues.
but again, as a "nice to have" it would be great to see this built into the product; and made configurable through the GUI.