Students at Oxford Hills Technical High School aren’t only learning how to design structures, they’re doing actual design work. Talk about real-world lessons.

These motivated students have moved beyond theoretical classwork. They plan, design and draft actual functional projects, such as a new horse barn at the Fryeburg Fairgrounds.

The class is designed to expose potential engineering and architectural students to these skilled professions, so the students do actual site work, including property surveys and topographical studies using industry-standard computer software.

This week, student Julie Sclafani, a junior at Oxford Hills, told the Sun Journal she’s discovered a love of design while working on plans for a 240- by 200-foot barn that includes a series of horse stalls and a pulling ring.

When she’s done with the work, she’ll present her plan to Fryeburg officials, and she hopes to see the building constructed.

We hope so, too.

It’s one thing for students to master concepts on the pages of a book. It’s something entirely different to build something tangible, something real.

Cheers to these students and their teachers for making learning real.

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Cheers and congrats to Mountain Valley’s Nick Woods, who earned the state’s Class B skimeister title on Thursday. Better yet, he earned the final points to claim that title at home, skiing in the state championships at Rumford’s Black Mountain of Maine.

Woods is not alone in his victory.

It’s been a week of intense competition in skiing and basketball this week, as middle and high school students have faced off to claim championship titles just a week after equally competitive championship efforts in hockey, wrestling and cheering across the state.

We congratulate the student athletes competing in these venues and cheer their collective sportsmanship and school pride.

But, really, Woods did win the very best sports title.

Skimeister? How cool is that?

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The Maine Drug Enforcement Agency was particularly busy in Western Maine this week, charging five people with drug crimes in Rumford on Thursday and another six people in Farmington on Friday.

Cheers to that effort.

On Thursday, working with Rumford police, DEA agents stopped a five-person cocaine trafficking ring they believe moved and sold as much as $250,000 in cocaine in the Rumford-Mexico area in the past year.

The four men and one women — Timothy Clark of Mexico, Kevin Pettegrow of Rumford, Kaine Hodgkins of Roxbury, Dale Korhonen of Jay and Uniah Leidy of Rumford — have been under investigation since January 2010, as police tracked their movements between Maine and Massachusetts.

In Farmington on Friday, DEA agents and local police arrested six people — Michelle Arsenault, Merlin Corey and Jeremy Whitney of Farmington, Angel Vasquez of Pawtucket, R.I., Kyle Haskell of Marshfield, Mass., and Robert Rivard whose address police could not determine — believed to be moving large amounts of ecstasy from Rhode Island to Maine for sale.

In making the arrest, officers seized $2,500 worth of ecstasy, a quantity of LSD and 146 marijuana plants growing in the attic of Corey and Arsenault’s McClellan Road home.

The arrest of 11 people and the seizure of a large amount of illegal drugs is terrific work, and we sincerely hope it puts a sizable dent in the drug traffic in Western Maine.

jmeyer@sunjournal.com

The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and editorial board.