Enid’s Lew Ward will receive the Trailblazer Award from the University of Oklahoma during a ceremony Friday in the Molly Shi Boren Ballroom of the Oklahoma Memorial Union at the University of Oklahoma. The reception is at 6 p.m. and the dinner at 7.

Past winner include Curtis Mewbourne, of Mewbourne Oil, the Lloyd Noble family and company and John Nichols, co-founder of Devon Energy.

“I was very, very surprised,” Ward said Sunday. “I feel very humbled to even be considered in the same group.”

The award was established in 2003 at the University of Oklahoma Sarkey’s Energy Center and is presented annually to honor the exceptional individuals in the energy industry who blaze a trail for others to follow. It recognizes those who have courageously pioneered operational or scientific practices, procedures and developments for the energy industry.

Oklahoma Trailblazers have exemplified the highest standards of personal integrity, ethics and service to others.

Ward is chairman of the board of Ward Petroleum Corp. in Enid. The company operates mostly in the Anadarko and Arkoma basins in Oklahoma. Over the years, Ward also formed and operated Ward Drilling Co., Rambler Well Service, Ward Gas Marketing, Geronimo Trucking, Caprock Supply and with his son, Bill, Gale Force Compression Services. He was listed in INC magazine three times as one of America’s fastest-growing private companies.

Ward graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in petroleum engineering in 1953. After graduation, he served in the U.S. Army from 1953 to 1955, then took a job with Dallas based Delhi-Taylor Oil Corp.

He married Myra Gungoll in 1955, and they have two children, Casidy and Bill. In 1956, the Wards moved to Enid and he formed Ward-Gungoll Oil Investments with his farther-in-law, Carl Gung-oll. In 1963, he formed his own company L.O. Ward Oil Operations, which later became Ward Petroleum Corporation.

He is a member of Enid Rotary Club and Enid American Business Club and has served as president of both organizations. He is a past director of Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce and president of Enid Chamber of Commerce, which also named him Businessman of the Year and Citizen of the Year in 2007.

Ward is a major donor to the expansion of Denny Price Family YMCA, YWCA Capital Campaign, Enid Public School Foundation, Enid Community Foundation and the renovation of Enid Symphony Center. Ward is a 30-year member of Grand National Quail Hunt Club, a supporter of Leonardo’s Discovery Warehouse Children’s Museum, Gaslight Theatre and Chautauqua in the Park, among a number of other civic contributions.

He serves as chairman of Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center and co-chairman of the Heritage Center Campaign Steering Committee, which is involved in a fundraising campaign to expand and renovate the Museum of the Cherokee Strip. He also serves on the board of Nature Conservancy and is a member of the American West Society of National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, the Oklahoma Heritage Association and Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.