A note on privacy: We do not disclose details about our guests or their events without permission. Private celebrations are described only in general terms, and names and photos appear only when a guest has said yes.

On Saturday night, this room fed the people who feed everything else.

The Town of Murphy held its Volunteer Appreciation Dinner here — 85 guests, prime rib on the plates, and a room full of the folks who show up for this town the other 364 days a year. The firefighters, the board members, the ones who run the events and staff the booths and coach the teams. Most nights, they're the ones doing the serving.

It was a good night, and it must have read that way from the outside, too — the Cherokee Scout put it on the front page.

Our family's business, Downtown Pizza Co., sits right across Hiwassee Street and handled the catering, the way it does for everything in this room. That never gets old: our people cooking for the town's people, in a building that's been serving Murphy in one form or another since 1950.

Eighty-five people at round tables, and the room never felt crowded — that's the thing about a space built for a hundred. It gives an evening like this room to breathe.

To every volunteer who sat at those tables: thanks for what you do when nobody's handing you a dinner for it.