Out here in the greening fields and lawns of southern Chester County, where I live, there are only a few lonely Hillary and Obama signs - this is deeply scarlet Republican turf - but the roiling political battle that has people talking concerns Boyd the Bully.

That would be Chauncey W. Boyd Jr., corpulent, jowly, self-described "country boy," proprietor of Boyd Trucking, and president of the Oxford Area school board. He is blunt, plainspoken, and has the evangelical zeal for education of a man who feels the lack of his own. What he lacks in formal schooling (he is a proud graduate of Oxford High School) and polish, Boyd more than makes up for with enthusiasm for his community and a burly, homegrown aptitude for local politicking. He has consistently controlled a bloc of votes on the board that enables him to have things his way.

After six eventful years as board president, during which he has overseen the construction of a new high school, Boyd found himself last month in the crosshairs of the scrappy Chester County Press, a local broadsheet with a circulation in the neighborhood of 15,000. In a campaign reminiscent of the earliest bare-knuckle days of newspapering in America, the Press has been working Boyd over pretty good in front-page reports and jeremiads. It is a time-honored privilege of the Fourth Estate - and a clear downside of public service.

A bold Press headline above the fold last month tagged him "Boyd the Bully," and it has been barking at him ever since. The paper has reported on the school district's sadly lackluster showing in teachers' salaries, per-pupil expenditures, and academic standing - Oxford is a small, rural district that compares unfavorably with neighboring, more affluent ones - and has understandably singled out Boyd as a prime culprit. It has also noted his often confrontational personal style, and even dug up the 2006 drunken-driving conviction of his son-in-law, who has been hired by the district to coach wrestling.

That article featured an arguably misleading photo of a haggard-looking, heavy-lidded Boyd beside the bold headline "Under the Influence." The paper incorrectly reported in an opinion column that Boyd never received his high school diploma - and promptly apologized in print. It also ran a front-page column under the headline "What's Wrong with Oxford? Start with Chauncey Boyd."

Boyd filed a lawsuit in federal court last week, charging the Press with defamation, and went to a rival newspaper, the Oxford Tribune, to fire back. The headline read: "Boyd says, 'Enough is Enough.' "

Nobody enjoys a good newspaper dustup more than I do, so I stopped by the offices of the Press to see whether the lawsuit and Boyd's complaints had induced the local scribes to temper their language.

"He's an animal, a barbarian," said Irvin Lieberman, who writes a feisty column under the heading "Uncle Irvin," and whose son Randy publishes the paper. "We'd like to see him resign, or at least not run again. The Oxford School District stinks."

The managing editor and the author of most of the attacks is Steve Hoffman, who says the whole thing started when he wrote a story about how a majority of Oxford 11th graders were falling short in reading- and math-proficiency tests. He attended the next board meeting, where Boyd defended his students and attacked the Press. Once the battle lines were drawn, some of the political enemies Boyd has made over the years began supplying the Press with ammunition. Most of it has been finding its way to the front page. Besides writing and wielding a camera, Hoffman lays out the pages and writes the headlines for his own stories, a practice discouraged at larger newspapers.

Like many a local kerfuffle, this one has deep and tangled roots. There's a board member whose friendship with Boyd foundered badly some years ago after he suggested that the truck driver step aside and let him take a turn as board president. There are parents and employees who have tangled with the board over the years and who have received blunt outbursts and e-mails from Boyd, and who have noted his tendency to employ his girth and pugnacity to emphasize his point of view. He does display a nostalgia for simpler schoolyard methods of disputation. In conversation with me, he repeatedly described himself as a "man's man" and mentioned several people who, in his distant, less-civilized past, he had felt the need to rearrange with his fists. But in fairness, these newspaper attacks have him riled up.

One of his past victims may have been Hoffman's father. "We grew up on the same block," Boyd said. "I may have beaten him up once or twice." Later in life, he says, Hoffman's father banned him from the Little League complex after he was involved in a fracas with other parents - "and I was the one trying to keep the peace!" he says. Boyd sees his current travails as, in part, an extension of this lifelong neighborhood feud.

Hoffman the writer, an Oxford graduate himself, seemed genuinely surprised to hear about his father's clashes with Boyd, but wasn't surprised - "he's always been a bully."

I was hoping to hear that the stories had increased the Press' circulation, but Randy Lieberman said there was no evidence of it yet, although the newspaper has been and remains steadily profitable. It is the only one out here printing stories that bite.

And that have some clout. Boyd told me that the last month "has been really difficult" and that, while he will not resign, he has decided not to seek reelection when his term is up in December 2009.

Until then, I've renewed my subscription to the Press, and I'm hoping to see more fireworks.