The United States Harness Writers Association has chosen owner/trainer/driver Ken Wood as the inaugural recipient of the January Davies Humanitarian Award.
Wood has been involved with harness racing for more than three decades, but it’s his hard work off the track that has garnered him this accolade.
Wood owns Lifetime Well Drilling in Denton, Maryland, and in 2006 the Aldersgate United Methodist Church bought one of his rigs on the internet for $75,000 and invited him to fly to Ghana to oversee its installation. The church does work in the West African nation through the not-for-profit Building Solid Foundations.
Before deciding to go, Wood, who had suffered two heart attacks and had open heart surgery the year before, did research on the internet and found out that unclean water kills more people than AIDS in Ghana.
In September 2006, he made that trip, the first of many, to Ghana and drilled 25 wells.
His wells are saving thousands of lives and making life easier for tens of thousands more.
“It’s such a privilege to do this,” said Wood. “I didn’t know if I was going to make it with open heart surgery. To come back and do something worthwhile is extremely rewarding.”
And if donating his time wasn’t enough, Wood chose to donate the rig and all the machinery necessary to do the job, investing several hundred thousand dollars of his own money.
“I don’t plan to stop,” he said. “I’m going to do this as long as my heart holds up. I’m only running on two-thirds of my heart, but I don’t plan to stop.”
Ken Wood will receive his Humanitarian Award at the Night of Stars awards banquet on Wednesday, February 4, at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas.
(USHWA)