Myron Melton would give students at Langston Hughes School the shirt off his back, but Monday all he had to sacrifice was a tie.

Literature-hungry children in the elementary school’s first- and second-grade classes put an end to Melton’s golf-club tie after meeting a goal of reading 2,000 books or book chapters in the past two weeks.

“I’m very nervous,” Melton joked as a student inched scissors near his jugular vein.

After a couple of preliminary snips, second-grader Kerrie Leinmiller-Renick left the principal with little more than a stub under his collar.

“Sorry, Mr. Melton, but goodbye to your tie,” Leinmiller-Renick said.

Melton said he was proud of the students’ commitment to reading.

“You guys did great,” he said.

After snipping off the tie of Langston Hughes Principal Myron Melton, right, second-grader Kerrie Leinmiller-Renick proudly displays the trophy. Students celebrated reading 2,000 books or book chapters in two weeks by cutting the principal's tie Monday.

Each of the 72 students in the four classrooms kept track of their progress on paper ties hanging in the hallway.

Lauren Gull, a second-grader, said she was plowing through “The Secret Garden.” It’s a 27-chapter book by Frances Hodgson Burnett that concerns two wretchedly spoiled children who restore a garden abandoned for 10 years.

“I’m halfway through in just two weeks!” Gull said.

The scissors-happy children elicited another pledge from Melton before he could escape. Would he give up a second tie if the students read another 2,000 books or book chapters?

“If you do,” he promised, “I’ll bring another tie.”