2009,
International Karate and
Kickboxing Hall of Fame inductee Shirley
Bendell, in the summer of 2002, executive-produced,
produced, and edited the
one-hour television pilot COWBOY, as well as
floor-directing the live audience stage show, and
was the camera operator/sound mixer on several
second unit sequences. Writing, producing,
directing, and editing a series of business videos,
Shirley Bendell won the very rare and coveted First
Place Gold Peak Award for a business and marketing
training video she produced. The prestigious award
was presented by the International Television
Alliance (ITVA) at the 1998 Denver Video Festival.
Graduating with honors
with a
Bachelor of Arts degree in
Mass Communication, with Emphasis on Film and
Television, from the
University of Southern Colorado, Shirley is
very accomplished editing video with Media 100, Avid
Composer, and Avid Xpress editing systems; as well
as experienced in all aspects of feature film,
acting, writing, directing, producing, editing,
stunts, shooting video, sound editing, and
conforming film. Shirley has been a national
finalist for her videos in the
Telly Awards and the Horizon Awards. She has
also been an associate producer and videographer on
multi-camera mix live sports events shooting for the
Denver Nuggets basketball games, Colorado State Fair
PRCA Rodeo, and numerous high school football and
baseball games.
She
has produced videos as diverse as a marketing and
training video for CPA’s, to a documentary on a YWCA
Domestic Violence Women’s Shelter, and then
to a video documentary on bighorn sheep, or even a
series of award-winning training modules to be used
by Small Business Centers in
Community Colleges on Entrepreneurial
Studies. She was also a major supporting actress
and stuntwoman in the successful low budget
action/adventure feature film, THE INSTRUCTOR
(Shapiro Entertainment Corp/Vestron Video, 1984),
and has also acted in professional theater. In 2002,
Shirley also wrote, produced, and directed a
twenty-minute video on events in the life of Jesus
of Nazareth, and in early 2003, was a production
assistant on the one-hour television show TILLY for
PAX cable network and produced by IMS Productions.
Master Shirley Bendell
An
action-oriented person, Ms. Bendell is a sixth
degree black belt master with over 31 years
experience in Tae Kwon Do, Freestyle Karate, Judo,
and Jujitsu. In December, 2009, Shirley became only
the third women ever inducted into the International
Karate and Kickboxing Hall of Fame joining her
husband Don, a 1995 inductee and making them the
first couple in history both inducted into the Hall
of Fame. She created an innovative Mini-Ninja
program for 3, 4, and 5 year-olds, which was copied
by most karate schools in southern
Colorado. She also started a transitional
program for 5 year olds called Power Ninjas. Shirley
is Chief Instructor of Bendell Karate in
Canon City and
Pueblo West.
With a smile a mile-wide, the former Student Senate
President at
Pueblo Community College and long-time
martial arts instructor, Shirley’s real
specialties are handling and leading people,
writing, directing, producing, acting, editing, and
outworking anyone she works with. An overachiever
and consummate perfectionist, she is one of those
rare people that everyone knows that they can count
on to start and finish any project she undertakes.
Shirley is also very accomplished at breaking and
training horses.
Shirley has had four surgeries on her right leg and
foot from just one incident of a horse falling on
her and crushing her leg. She also had a 1,300 pound
quarter-horse flip itself on her
high
in the mountains in the late-eighties, then
it fell back on her 3 times trying to stand, and
finally stepped all over her while she lay
unconscious. The following day, in intensive care in
the hospital, she had a horseshoe-shaped bruise on
the side of her neck and three more on her spine.
When she competed in karate tournaments, Shirley not
only won first place every time she competed, she
never even had one point scored against her by
another woman in sparring. In one tournament in
Las
Vegas, she literally ripped the uniform top
off two separate competitors running them out of the
ring with kicks and punches. Now, for the past year
and a half, Shirley has been in the
biggest fight of her life with Chronic Myelogenous
Leukemia, CML, in Lymphoid Blast Crisis. She went through
ten rounds of chemo therapy and on June 29, 2011,
had a successful stem cell/bone marrow
transplant. Now, she is in remission and cancer
free, but is still asking for lots of prayer, as she plans
to win this newest fight also, with God’s help and
blessing, and be totally cured of Leukemia.
Like Don, Shirley has been a long-time recovering
alcoholic and has been public about being a former
victim of both gang rape and acquaintance rape. In
1996, she won the very prestigious Jefferson Award
for southern Colorado from
KOAA
NBC-TV and the Pueblo Chieftain, for her work with
rape victims, alcoholics, drug addicts, and her
outstanding Sexual Assault Prevention Program for
women. She also started an ARC program, All Recovery
in Christ, a part of Overcomers Outreach in
Canon
City, Colorado. ARC is a 12-step program for
all who are affected in any way by obsessive
behavior such as alcoholism utilizing the 12-steps
of Alcoholic Anonymous but with Jesus Christ as the
recognized "Higher Power."
Also like Don, Shirley was born in northeastern
Ohio, graduating from Youngstown
Boardman High School in 1965 but then lived
the early part of her adult life in Akron, Ohio. As
a young girl, Shirley took ballet, tap, toe-tap,
jazz, and gymnastics, and she used to give acrobatic
exhibitions until breaking her tailbone. She loves
to camp, fish, and bowhunt on horseback in the
Rocky
Mountains, work with horses, play tennis or
golf, and go dancing with Don. She has three sons,
one step-son, two step-daughters, and eight
grandchildren. Shirley and Don have been married
since September 6, 1981. Shirley sometimes proudly
wears specially-made T-shirts with a
Green
Beret with slanted dagger behind it, and the
words over and under it reading: "Wife and Mother of
Green
Berets . . .an Incredible Breed of Woman."
That pretty much describes Shirley Bendell best.
