Bastrop, Texas -- Folks here crinkle their faces at the mere mention of his name. Some curse him. Others rue the day he moved to this conservative cattle town 35 miles from Austin.
The object of all that scorn? A chunky 12-year-old boy named Zachariah Toungate, who spent part of third grade being taught in an isolated room because he refused to agree to demands by school administrators to cut off his ponytail. After four years, he still won't.
"I don't care what they think, I'm not going to cut it," says a defiant Zach, clasping the 15-inch lock of blond hair that has made him a virtual outcast in Bastrop, but a cause celebre around the world.
Because both sides have refused to budge, Zach's haircut has turned into a pitched court battle that has dragged on for four years. It could eventually set a precedent in Texas, a state with no shortage of long-hair battles.
Last month, State District Judge Norman Lanford ruled that the school district's dress code, which prohibits boys from wearing their hair longer than the bottom of their shirt collars, violated the state Constitution because it did not apply equally to girls. But the judge refused to revoke the rule, saying the dispute did not merit court intervention.
Zach's parents, Stanley and September Toungate, plan to appeal the ruling. Meanwhile, they continue to teach Zach, now a seventh-grader, and his 9-year-old sister, Linzi, at home.
"It blows my mind to see grown people so threatened by a third-grader with a ponytail," says Mrs. Toungate, who is bitter that the school has refused to revoke the rule even though the judge said it's unconstitutional.
But school officials show no signs of backing down.
"Part of our job is to teach students how to function in society," says Bastrop Superintendent Paul Flemming. "Complying with community standards is part of that. In the real world, if you work for a company, you have to follow their rules."
Following the rules means a lot in Bastrop, a farming and ranching community of about 5,000 southeast of the more liberal state capital. The Toungates -- like many newcomers -- moved here from Austin in 1987. And that makes Zach's ponytail even more suspect in the eyes of longtime residents.
"That little [expletive] ought to cut it off or go somewhere else," says Robert Henderson, who runs the local feed store. "Every one of these highways that comes into Bastrop, leaves Bastrop -- and they run all the way to Baltimore."
But the Toungates, who live in a trailer tucked back in the woods several miles from Bastrop, aren't going anywhere.
"Ironically, we moved here so that Zach could go to school," says Mrs. Toungate, 34, a psychiatric nurse. "We'd heard they had a really good school with really good teachers."
Starting in second grade
Zach was in second grade when he began sporting a tail. He says he wanted to look like country singer Billy Ray Cyrus and his father, Stanley, 44, an electrician and car mechanic who has worn his hair long since he went to high school.
The ponytail didn't attract much attention until the next year, when Bastrop school officials revamped their strict dress and grooming code to ban hair that falls below the bottom of boys' shirt collars. The rules also prohibit Afros, boys' earrings, baggy pants and facial hair.
School officials say local residents helped draft the rules and that they reflect the community's standards.
"We want clean-cut, well-groomed students here," school board president Ray Long says. "We're trying to support a wholesome learning environment and our constituents have made it clear they expect good order and discipline of our students."
Soon afterward, Mrs. Toungate was summoned to her son's elementary school. She was told by the principal that Zach's wispy, 6-inch tail had to go.
"I was told," she says with a grimace, "that little boys should look like boys."
The Toungates left the decision up to Zach, who didn't want to cut the tail. When he refused, school officials placed him alone in a 10-by-13-foot room with broken-down typewriters and butcher paper covering the windows.
He wasn't allowed to eat or take recess with other students.
A parade of substitute teachers and aides taught him until his parents, worried about the psychological impact, pulled him out of school after four months.
"It was a little scary," Zach says, eyes widening. "When I was in that isolation room, I used to have a lot of nightmares that the room kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller -- until it crushed me."
In his ruling last month, Judge Lanford likened the isolation room to a solitary confinement cell in a prison. He scolded both sides for letting the case "reach the absurd level that it did."
The judge said "shame should be heaped generously" on everyone. But he didn't force the school district to let Zach and his ponytail back into school.
Zach isn't the only kid in Texas who wants to wear his hair long, regardless of what people in Bastrop think.
Several other Texas school districts have become entangled in long-hair disputes. The state Supreme Court currently is weighing the case of an 18-year-old Houston-area senior who was punished for having long hair.
In Lubbock, a Native American student suspended for his long locks is fighting the decision based on religious reasons. So is a South Texas youngster whose parents promised God they wouldn't cut their son's hair as a sign of their faith after he was treated for testicular cancer.
Letters of support
But Zach's case is easily the best known of the bunch. When he was confined to the isolation room, his plight made headlines worldwide. Cards and letters of support, he says, have poured in from all over the United States and Europe and "fill three grocery bags."
Some supporters still write, including a soldier who served in the Persian Gulf war and told Zach, "I'm over here fighting for your rights so that you can wear your hair long if you want to."
Despite all the attention, Zach's still an average seventh-grade boy. He spends his free time shooting a BB gun, catching turtles and playing Nintendo. He keeps a Swiss army knife in his front pocket at all times.
He has paid a high price for his ponytail. He has few friends, and his parents worry about his missing the social aspect of school. Last year, they enrolled him in a karate class so he would have more contact with children his own age. But they can't protect Zach from the town's resentment.
The superintendent says the school district has run up nearly $150,000 in legal bills to defend its hair-length policy, although its insurance policy has covered all but a $5,000 deductible.
Bobbie Jones, a secretary at a local insurance company, says Bastrop residents are "sick and tired of this case. It's ridiculous to let a third-grader rule the kingdom. This case is wasting our tax money."
The dispute isn't likely to go away soon, as much as people here wish it would. The Toungates, who are being represented for free by an Austin attorney, say they will take the case as far as they can in an effort to defend Zach's rights.
"It's been a long fight, but I'm going to keep it up until it's over with, and they change the rule," Zach says. "They shouldn't be able to discriminate."
"They're hypocrites," Mrs. Toungate says of school administrators. "How can their teachers stand up and teach kids about this wonderful document, the Constitution, that guarantees us all of these rights -- but not in the Bastrop schools?"