Matthew Joseph Shepherd is an attorney from his native El Dorado, Arkansas, who is a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from District 6, which includes western Union County. He was elected in both the 2010 and 2012 legislative elections. In 2010, Shepherd claimed the District 6 seat by defeating the Democrat Ken Bridges, 4,780 to 2,074. In 2012, still in the reorganized District 6, Shepherd to gain a second term defeated the Independent Peter Cyphers, 10,051 to 2,149. Shepherd graduated in 1998 from the Southern Baptist-affiliated Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia in South Arkansas. In 2001, he received the Juris Doctor degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville. He and his wife, Alie, have three children, Eli, Mary Kate, and Libby. Shepherd is among those state legislators who have endorsed Asa Hutchinson for governor of Arkansas in 2014. Hutchinson is making his second vbid for the office, having been defeated in 2006 by the current and term-limited Democratic Governor Mike Beebe. 

January 1st, 1976 in El Dorado (Age 49)