The award, which was announced Tuesday, is the first such honor for Dundas, who is a Missoula native and University of Montana journalism school graduate.
“It's exciting and humbling,” Dundas said. “I don't know, it must have been a down year for feature writing.”
Chris Carlson of the Berkshire Eagle was named the APSE's best features writer for 2007 by a panel of judges for newspapers with a circulation of 40,000 or fewer. Todd M. Adams of the Aurora Beacon News was runner-up.
The APSE awards, which include categories for columns, features, breaking news, game stories and project reporting, are the most prestigious in the field of daily sports journalism, short of a Pulitzer Prize.
Ten finalists were chosen by sports editors and executives in preliminary judging this past February. A second round whittled the contestants down to five placers and five honorable mentions.
This marks the second year in a row that a member of the Missoulian sports department finished in the top three of the APSE contest.
Last year, Rial Cummings won for best column writing in the under 40,000 circulation category. Cummings retired from the Missoulian last June.
Dundas was a national finalist in his first entry in the APSE contest.
He graduated from UM in 2001 with a degree in journalism. He received a Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing in 2006 from the school. While serving as editor in chief of UM's Montana Kaimin newspaper, Dundas finished in the top 20 in the William Randolph Hearst Foundation's national column writing contest.
Dundas, 29, has worked at the Missoulian for two and a half years, covering college and high school sports.
The Missoulian also placed in the top 20 in the nation for its Sunday sports section in the same contest for circulations 40,000 and under.
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