Shoffner grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and played drums and bugle before settling on trumpet at age eleven.
Shoffner suffered a lip ailment in 1927, but returned after a few months to play with Charles Elgar (1928), Erskine Tate, Jerome Carrington, McKinney's Cotton Pickers (1931), and Frankie Jaxon (1932).
He moved to New York City in 1934, and played there with Fess Williams, Fletcher Henderson, and Hot Lips Page (1938).
He returned once more to Chicago around 1940, and took a job working for the state; he recorded with Richard M. Jones in the middle of the 1940s, but then took a hiatus from music until 1957 to play with Franz Jackson's Original Jazz All-Stars (1957-1963).
Shoffner also recorded in the 1920s with Lovie Austin, Jimmy O'Bryant, Ida Cox, and Luis Russell.