Yes, you can export an OBJ directly from LightWave Modeler; depending on what version of lLightWave you're using, LW's OBJ export can be rather lackluster.

My preferred method for converting an LWO to an OBJ is using Blender. You'll need a slightly older version Blender, as they dropped support for the LWO import plug-in a few versions back. I'm not sure exactly which version they dropped it from, I know that LWO support in Blender 2.49b is good tho [that's what I keep around to use for LWO->OBJ when needed].

Core i7 950@3.02GHz | 12GB Corsair Dominator Ram@1600mHz | 2GB Geforce GTX 660

Lightwave | Blender | Marmoset | GIMP | Krita