As design editor for the past 18 months, he’s produced some extraordinary front pages, from the one reporting President Barack Obama’s election to the firestorm at Gerogery this week.

Yesterday Dulhunty, 28, won the T.H. Mott award for excellence in journalism, in effect The Border Mail’s journalist-of-the year award that honours Tennyson Mott, a former director and news editor.

Editor Heath Harrison said that Dulhunty had a passion for design that he used to the full in news and feature pages.

Dulhunty joined the newspaper in 1999 and trained as a cadet in news, sport and features.

In 2005 he joined the New Zealand Herald as news designer and returned to this country two years later to be online editor at the Geelong Advertiser, returning to The Border Mail in 2008.

His wife, Kylie, is a feature writer on this newspaper.

Harrison said sports editor Brett Kohlhagen and reporter Brad Worrall had also been strong contenders for the award.

Matt Cram, 23, won the John Saxby memorial award as cadet-of-the year after only 18 months in journalism.

Cram holds a bachelor of journalism degree from La Trobe University and is the sports section’s racing writer, also handling football, cricket and other sports.

Kylie Goldsmith won the Alex Massey award for photography for the third time, based on her year-long work.

Matthew Smithwick’s image of the Black Saturday fires won him the picture-of-the-year award.

Harrison also commended John Russell’s photographs of the Gerogery fires on Thursday but said the awards had closed before that date.