After Kyle Dyer announced Monday morning that she will end her 20-year career at KUSA-Channel 9 on Sept. 7, she received a flood of messages from friends and fans.

“I haven’t yet had a chance to respond,” she said during an afternoon break at the station. “I’d kind of kept the news to myself and my family.”

She’s not yet ready to talk about future plans, which are in the works, but she’s happy to share memories from her career in Denver, which dates back to 1996 and her first story — covering the transfer of Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols from the Federal Correctional Institution in Jefferson County to the prison in downtown Denver.

Back then, she didn’t know anyone in Denver, and — like most peripatetic journalists — she wasn’t sure she’d stay.

But then she met her husband, started a family, and rooted herself in the community.

“It became home,” she said.

Dyer watched Denver grow from a place that was barely on the map into a destination of choice for the millennial generation.

“It’s changed, but the thing that’s so great is that when I moved here, so many people were moving here from other parts, but that has stayed the same. Everyone is super-friendly, and everyone wants to make the city the best it can be.”

Dyer worked as a morning anchor until 2014, when she switched to anchoring the 11 a.m. and midday newscasts, a slot that allowed her to spend more time with her daughters, who were then 11 and 9.

She worked on such stories as Columbine and the Aurora theater shooting, but is perhaps best known for how she handled losing her upper lip after an Argentine mastiff bit her on live television.

The day before, the mastiff had been rescued from an icy lake. The next day, on Dyer’s show, she leaned in close to the dog to cuddle, and it bit her. The video of the incident was widely viewed.

After skin was grafted from her lower lip to create a new upper lip, her mouth was sewn shut for more than a week, but she wasn’t angry.

She focused on the kindness of people around the world who had sent her letters, and she went on the Today Show to talk openly about the surgery.

She also took the blame for the attack, saying she leaned too close to the dog.

Over the years, as her career evolved, she began to focus on “cool programs that I didn’t even know existed,” she said, like food drives, programs for the homeless, and stories about people who’ve devoted themselves to helping others.

“People here are driven to make life better,” she said, “and that has inspired me.”