Mr Thompson, 38, had been bravely fighting cancer since late last year.

He had continued to have an input into editorial decisions from his hospital bed until this month.

Despite intense treatment at St Vincent’s, his condition continued to deteriorate.

He leaves his wife, Kristy Grant, a reporter at The Border Mail; daughter Ava, 17 months, his parents, Greg and Elaine Thompson and a sister, Trish, also his beloved extended family, Alison, Bruce and Paul Grant, Nicole and Dran.

Mr Thompson was born in Albury, attended Holy Spirit Primary School at Lavington and was an altar boy at the Holy Spirit church.

He went on to Xavier High School, where he excelled in sport, especially golf and cricket.

In 1987 he joined The Border Mail as a cadet journalist, learning every aspect of the craft from sports reporting to courts and council work and sub-editing.

Meanwhile, his golfing career flourished at the Hume Country Club and still in his teens he became Riverina champion.

Mr Thompson succeeded Bernie Bell as Murray District Association secretary and partnered him in further championships.

Mr Thompson won several titles around the region and competed against the country’s best amateur players at the Australian Amateur Championships.

After a break from the game, he returned to help Wodonga Country to the North East District Golf Association pennant final last year.

A talented cricketer, Mr Thompson played in junior representative sides alongside Michael Slater, who went on to open the batting for Australia.

The wicket-keeper batsman played in an Albury and Border Cricket Association A Grade premiership with Lavington and was also a part of three Belvoir premiership-winning teams in Wodonga and District cricket.

Mr Thompson’s flair for editing, layout and a knowledge of the local clubs led to his promotion to sports editor in 1995.

Within a few months, The Australian Financial Review head-hunted him and he spent three years with that newspaper’s sub-editing team.

His next appointment was chief sports sub-editor of The Sun-Herald in Sydney.

In April 2001, Mr Thompson was lured back to The Border Mail by new editor Simon Dulhunty and appointed features editor.

In 2004 he was judged The Border Mail’s journalist of the year and won a scholarship that saw him spend six weeks studying newspapers in Britain.

Mr Thompson wrote the Full Stop Saturday column for several months and eventually was promoted to deputy editor and later acting editor when Mr Dulhunty left in 2005.

The Mott family’s decision to appoint Mr Thompson as editor was a popular one among his colleagues, with whom he enjoyed a great rapport.

That year The Border Mail was the outstanding newspaper in regional NSW, winning the EC Sommerland award for excellence in journalism for the third year in a row.

Mr Thompson not only received that award but he and Kristy Grant shared the Sir Harry Budd award for their work on the coverage of the fight to allow the Halimi family from Kosovo to stay in Wodonga.

The couple married on the beach at Terrigal in January 2006 and were blessed with a daughter, Ava.

Funerals arrangements will be announced later this week.