Paul Howe Shepard: A Man Dedicated to Fruit, Fun, and Service

Abstract

Paul Howe Shepard (1892-1961) is best known today both as a student athlete and longstanding Director of the Missouri State Fruit Experiment Station, where he pursued his passion for growing fruit. As a fruit breeder, he introduced 39 fruit cultivars from 1935 to 1956 when drought and high temperature extremes were the norm. His most enduring fruit cultivars are ‘Loring’ peach, ‘Bluefre’ and ‘Ozark Premier’ plums, and ‘Ozark Gold’ apple, although he also released 12 grape hybrids and a black raspberry cultivar. During the lean years of the Great Depression, Dust Bowl, and post–World War II, Shepard provided economic opportunity for families who had suffered great losses by breeding locally-adapted fruit cultivars and developing orchard plans and cultural methods to grow them on small parcels of land. For more than 25 years, he influenced millions of fruit growers with his Country Gentlemanmagazine articles and weekly newspaper columns. In 1954, Shepard was the recipient of the Wilder Medal and served as President of the American Pomological Society (APS) for the following five years. In honor of his lifelong service, the P.H. Shepard Award is presented annually to the authors of the best paper published in the Journal of American Pomological Society. A seminal plant breeder and horticulturalist, Paul Howe Shepard’s work was never done as he was always pursuing a superior fruit cultivar and a better production method.