Recruiting and retaining teachers is a nationwide issue for schools in all locales. For rural schools, however, lower salaries, small school sizes, and geographic isolation can make it even more difficult to recruit and retain a qualified teaching staff. This study sought to quantify and characterize differences in recruiting teachers between rural and non-rural high schools in the Central Region, as well as identify differences in teacher recruiting and retention between rural secondary schools that were "successful" and "unsuccessful," as evidenced from their responses to 12 survey items found in the 2003-2004 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) data. Responses to the SASS items addressing recruiting and retention strategies largely did not differentiate between successful and unsuccessful rural high schools, however. To augment these findings with descriptions of the experiences of successful rural high schools, researchers also interviewed seven principals identified as successful by their state agencies. The interviewed principals identified other strategies for recruiting and retaining secondary teachers, such as a focus on recruiting rural residents. Taken together, the data analysis and the interview findings suggest that small towns and rural areas in the Central Region have in fact had relatively more difficulty in recruiting teachers than have larger communities, underscoring that rural principals and district administrators are in need of strategies for teacher recruitment and retention. Four appendixes present: (1) Tables; (2) Methodology and Data Analysis; (3) SASS School District Questionnaire Items 14 and 28 and School Questionnaire Item 38B; and (4) Interview Protocol. (Contains 50 footnotes, 4 boxes, and 13 tables.)