The woodshop lives on

Marisa O’Neil

Oak-stained tables, candlesticks and toilet paper holders hanging on

the walls of Wayne Dills’ classroom make it look, if only for a

second, like a T.G.I. Friday’s or some other similarly-themed

restaurant.

But the buzz of jigsaws and smell of sawdust fill the air, telling

visitors the room is definitely a fully-functional workshop, not a

place to get a quick order of chicken wings. And like any woodshop,

the sawdust covers almost every surface.

Dills teaches wood shop and metal shop classes for 150 students at

Estancia High School, proving that making a good cutting board isn’t

a lost art. Students in his wood shop class also make tables, candle

holders, plaques and other handy items.

“This is very much a traditional high school woodshop class,” he

said.

He supervised the class on Monday and offered his expertise as

students worked independently on different projects, for each skill

level. Some of the students, grades nine through 12, are taking the

class for the first time, while others are in their second year.

New students, like 17-year-old Kotaro Seki, worked on making

small, wooden eagles -- made of 24 tiny pieces of wood. Estancia’s

mascot is the eagle.

Kotaro meticulously cut out the outline from a piece of plywood

using a band saw. Then he set to work cutting each individual piece

out of thicker wood, getting ready to piece together the puzzle and

glue it on the plywood.

Jorge Lozoya, 18, used the same saw to cut out a larger version of

the eagle. He carefully followed the lines drawn on the sheet of

plywood while other students waited patiently for their turn.

Nearby, 16-year-old Yohnny Tamalatzi worked on a candle holder.

The wooden cylinder spun around and around at high speed on a wood

lathe while he used sandpaper to carve designs into it.

In one corner of the room, Leticia Gonzalez, Gabriela Lopez and

Silvia Rojas, all 17, sat at a table, catching up on their weekends

and sanding their projects. Silvia and Gabriela both were working on

wooden Winnie the Pooh plaques.

As the class drew to a close, the students wrapped up their work

and got ready to go, leaving a little more sawdust behind.

“Make sure you clean up,” Dills told them. “Give the custodian at

least a little help.”