Artemis enjoyed going inside and outside at will while Oreo just wanted a better look at everything.

Artemis and Oreo were two of the 19 sheep and three goats who moved into the renovated sheep barn at the Lawton Public Schools farm on a hot summer afternoon. One update was appreciated by humans and sheep alike — air conditioning.

“This one has air conditioning, the other one had a lot of fans,” said Anastasia Fortune, a sixth grader at MacArthur Middle School who is showing sheep for the first time. Her sheep, Oreo, had been housed in the goat barn since she got him two months ago. They were two of the first occupants of the sheep barn after workers spent months upgrading the facility.

Oreo seemed curious about his new surroundings, at one time standing up on his hind legs in his new pen to get a better look around, expressing his viewpoint by constantly baaing.

“He is a people lamb, so he wants to know what is going on,” Anastasia Fortune’s mother, Tiffanie, said as she laughed at him.

Artemis, who is owned by Anderson McPhail, seemed to enjoy the freedom of his new, roomier pen. A door separates the inside part of the pen from the outside and can be closed in winter to keep the sheep warmer. But a warm summer afternoon was the perfect time to run outside, grab a mouthful of grass, and run back inside to eat your snack.

Although the four-legged occupants didn’t have much to say about the air conditioning in the grooming room, the two-legged occupants did, with at least two of them citing that as the best part of the upgrade.

“It was hot. We had the windows open,” said Aubree Hill, a MacArthur Middle School eighth grader who showed sheep last year. She said the AC was the best feature of the upgrade. “They will have air conditioning when they get washed.”

While air conditioning was the most popular addition to the renovated barn, students saw plenty of other features they liked.

One was the new tack lockers, featuring key pad locks on each one.

“Hey, I can hang his halter in here. We have shelves,” Anastasia Fortune said as she took her first look inside the lockers. She noted the feed bucket could go in the locker rather than stay in the stall. And her mother was excited that some of the paraphernalia she has been hauling around in her vehicle will have a new home.

Students also were thrilled with the new look of the grooming room, which is where sheep are washed, blow dried, have their legs wrapped and work out on a treadmill. That room has several new features, including more plugs for blow dryers, a mirror mounted on the wall so students can see their sheep’s stance better and an improved wash bay to keep water from splashing out into the larger room.

Hill said the addition of lights will enable students to see the front of their sheep better when they groom them, especially when they work in the evenings.

While the air conditioning is nice this summer, a new heater will keep sheep and student toasty in winter.

Other improvements include reskinning the roof, new breaker boxes, new wall coverings, individual electrical outlets at each stand, a new concrete floor and a heater to keep water from freezing.

While the students seemed to like the improvements, what about the sheep?

“I think they like it,” Hill said.