HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Stephen Ward was only five years-old when he saw his father for the final time. His dad, Parker Ward owned Hez Ward Buick in Huntington and was on the DC-9 jetliner that crashed near Tri-State Airport, killing all 75 Marshall football players, coaches, administrators, and crew on board.
“I remember a rainy day and a rainy evening and people converging on our house,” recalled Ward. “Just being five or five-and-a-half years old and probably not understanding the magnitude of it.”
Ward will speak on behalf of the families during Saturday’s annual Memorial Service at the student center plaza.
Parker Ward owned Hez Ward Buick in Huntington and was a former swimmer at the University of North Carolina. He, like everybody else, was excited at the rare opportunity to take a charter flight to Greenville, N.C. for the Nov. 14 game against East Carolina.
“Back then this was a big deal to take a charter flight down to Greenville,” Ward emphasized.
For Ward it was several years before he released how far-reaching the tragedy really was.
“A friend of mine, Karen Hagley, who lost not only her dad, Dr. Ray Hagley, lost her mother Shirley. I think as I started to grow up, especially in the ’80’s, in middle school at Camack, I started understanding what it meant to everybody. It’s not like we went through it alone, there were so many folks involved.”
Ward, now 50, lives in Louisville where he works for Boehriner-Ingelheim Oncology where he manages nine representatives covering eight states. He admittedly doesn’t remember much about his father, who was just 36 when he died, but Ward said there is one memory that sticks out.
“I had a memory of him taking us down to Fairfield Stadium and throwing the ball around a little bit,” Ward fondly remember.
Saturday’s ceremony begins at 10 a.m. The service will be livestreamed at www.marshall.edu/it/livestream.