LYNDORA — The Walldogs have put the finishing touches on a successful week in Butler.

After three days of exhausting but rewarding work for the artists and community, a celebration dinner was held Saturday at Coleman Hall at the Tanglewood Center.

By the time the dinner started, most of the 10 murals were near completion.

“It is a success,” said mural coordinator Scott Lindley. “I judge success by completed projects. We’ll be at 100 percent success when we walk away with all the murals completed.”

Lindley said Saturday that he expected all the murals to be completed by Sunday.

“There’s nothing that says they shouldn’t be,” he said. “The majority of them should be finished tonight.”

The artists took a break from their efforts to be honored, and at the dinner Lindley called up all of the project leaders and the well-attended dinner crowd gave them a standing ovation.

In turn, the muralists were grateful to have been in Butler, including Kelley Bell, of Columbus, Ohio.

“This one was special,” said Bell, who assisted on the diner- and drive-in-themed mural. “(The town) was just the right size, and there was an energy to this group that was like capturing lightning in a bottle. You don’t always see that; sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. This town, they’ve got it going on.”

Andrew Patrick Henry of Barnesville, Ga., was the project leader of the diner- and drive-in mural. He appreciated Butler’s hospitality and found a great deal of value in working here.

“The town has taken immaculate care of us,” he said. “I feel like this is important. Whether or not people realize it now, I feel like it does the town good to be able to walk down the street and see something beautiful.”

The murals will be spectacles not just for locals, but also for tourists. Tom Graham, president of Butler Downtown, spoke of plans to create a walking tour for the murals.

“These things are going to make us more and more of a destination,” he said.

Lindley, has been a coordinator for five Walldogs events, working to assign Walldogs to certain murals and picking out the ones to be painted. With his experience, he is no stranger to the effect the events have on towns.

“It’s always the people,” he said. “It’s the mural artists, who come on their own dime because they want to invest in a community. And it’s the people in the community, who have a newfound love for the community. Sometimes people get down on their town and say, ‘The town’s this, or the town’s that,’ and then all of a sudden they fall in love with their town again.”

Bell said the towns also grow close to the muralists.

“Each one of these towns becomes like family to us,” she said. “We’re almost adopted in like extended family members of the town by being part of the reunion that you have with your own history.”

The Walldogs weren’t the only ones honored at the dinner. Mayor Tom Donaldson thanked the painters for making the city better, and also honored Pat Collins, executive director of the Butler County Historical Society, with a key to the city. The society was responsible for bringing the Walldogs to Butler.

“I never expected that,” Collins said of the honor. “From the time I first saw a city that had been transformed by a Walldog meet, this was something I wanted to see brought to Butler. It’s the culmination of my hopes and dreams to bring this to the city and watch these murals come to life.”

Collins also was happy with the community interest the event sparked.

“The amount of people we’ve seeing coming out, bring out chairs, bring out their children, to watch these people paint murals, that was the whole goal, to liven up Butler,” she said.

Collins credited volunteers who worked 16-hour days to prepare and serve food to the painters, as well as to assist them on their murals.

“It would never have been possible without the volunteers,” she said.

One volunteer, Jen Hundertmark of Butler, was thrilled by the experience. She was an on-site manager of the diner- and drive-in mural.

“From the start, the diners and drive-ins mural was my favorite, so I jumped on it,” she said. “It was exhausting but life-changing. (The Walldogs are) good people, salt of the earth.”