Stephen Hall Shepherd (1950- ) was born in New York City and moved to Palm Springs with his family at the age of eight. He graduated from Lake Worth High School in 1968 and attended Palm Beach Junior College, now Palm Beach Community College.
In the 1970s Shepherd entered the field of full contact karate, also called kickboxing, and won the world title in kickboxing five times in four weight divisions. He defeated world champions from Canada, Japan, Australia, Europe, and Asia from seven weight divisions, from welterweight (150 pounds) to heavyweight (over 205 pounds).
As a middleweight, Shepherd chose to challenge undefeated World Heavyweight Kickboxing Champion Demitrius “Oaktree” Edwards (who became Mike Tyson’s chief sparring partner) at the West Palm Beach Auditorium in 1982; Shepherd won the fight in ten rounds. Official Karate magazine named him pound-for-pound the greatest kickboxer in the world in 1980, 1981, and 1982, when he was inducted into the Palm Beach County Sports Hall of Fame. Shepherd retired from kickboxing in 1999 with a career record of forty-nine wins, four losses, and two no-contest. In 2003 he received the Living Legends Sport Karate Award from the American Karate Academies National Association.
From 1975 to 2000, Shepherd owned and operated a training facility, Shepherd’s Boxing and Kickboxing Center, in West Palm Beach and Lake Worth. He promoted more than 100 events involving over 200 amateur and professional world champions, including the U. S. vs. the Soviet Union in 1990 at the West Palm Beach Auditorium.
In 1999 Shepherd designed and patented a shoe to replace the conventional footpad worn in martial arts, the first ever approved for competition by a governing body, the International Sport Kickboxing Association in 2002. As his continually improved shoe designs were sanctioned by all ruling authorities, Shepherd developed a full line of martial arts equipment.