This paper offers the author's personal reflections about an event at a research pre-session of the 2003 annual conference of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) held on April 2003 in San Antonio, Texas. The session offered a rare opportunity for the mathematics education community to consider rural issues. In this paper, the author summarizes and reacts to five papers presented at the research pre-conference, concluding with a list of rural myths to be considered by scholars contemplating research on the teaching and learning of mathematics in rural settings.