ATLANTA >> Deborah Norville said she is leaving the longtime syndicated newsmagazine “Inside Edition” after 30 years of her own volition and with her head held high.

“It’s been quite a run,” she said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday before her final show. “It’s nice to leave on top. I’m swimming in gratitude.”

At age 66, Norville felt it was time to do other things. She is planning a long vacation in Europe with her husband of 38 years, then hosting the new syndicated game show “The Perfect Line,” which is shooting at Trilith Studios this summer in Fayetteville and debuts in the fall.

“Inside Edition” will use guest hosts until a replacement anchor is named.

“Yesterday during a satellite tour with local TV stations, a young woman said I was the reason she became a journalist,” Norville said. “That just stops you cold. There’s no higher compliment that what you do every day can inspire someone to take up your life’s work.”

She was especially proud of her work during the COVID-19 pandemic. “When the world turned upside down, we kept going,” she said. “We created a studio in my house with a green screen. We didn’t have the graphics but had the content people needed during all that confusion. We tried to be like what Mister Rogers’ mother told him, the idea of being the helpers to give us hope during difficult times.”

Norville grew up in Dalton and graduated from the University of Georgia with a journalism degree. She interned at Georgia Public Broadcasting before working as a reporter at WAGA-TV, then a CBS affiliate, from 1979 to 1982. After five years at a Chicago TV station, she joined NBC News and moved up quickly to become co-anchor of “Today.”

But that job only lasted a year and she was replaced by Katie Couric.

Norville moved to CBS News, working on newsmagazines like “Street Stories” and “48 Hours,” then as a correspondent and fill-in anchor of “CBS Evening News.” But when she became pregnant with her second child, she wanted a job that didn’t involve living out of a suitcase.

“Inside Edition,” seeking an anchor replacement for a pre-Fox News Bill O’Reilly, was the answer.

“If I had stuck around with CBS News, I don’t know if my marriage would have lasted and I wouldn’t have been the mom I aspired to be,” Norville said.

Although “Inside Edition” was considered less prestigious than CBS News, she helped shepherd the news coverage away from “Hard Copy”-style tabloid fodder and more news you can use, investigative pieces and People magazine-style feature segments.