Not strictly necessary, although there are a lot of bureaucratic hoops to be jumped through and personal visits to the nearest Spanish Embassy.
Your IP address indicates that you are located in Walnut Grove in California, so you nearest embassy is in Los Angeles. See here for details of visa requirements..
http://www.maec.es/Subwebs/Consulados/LosAngeles/en/Home/Paginas/Home_LA.aspx
You might like also to check out the posts of our member rut42 who has recently gone through all the procedures…
There is no minimum posting requirement on this forum so you could also try a private message to the guy…
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