Cedric King opens NACo Annual Conference with lessons in resilience

U.S. Army Master Sgt. Cedric King was on a reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan when he stepped on an improvised explosive device, or IED. The next thing he remembers is waking up in the hospital — where he would spend the next three years of his life — with both of his legs amputated. In a moment, his life changed forever. But he didn’t let that limit how he decided to live it. Twenty-six months and three days after losing his legs, King completed a 70.3 mile half Ironman triathlon. 

King shared his experience with finding resilience and “peace in the storm” with county officials July 17 at NACo’s Annual Conference Opening General Session. 

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2026 NACo Annual Conference & Exposition

“I’m realizing my injury doesn’t define me,” he said. “Because I know that what does define me is what I do after the injury.”

In the wake of his injury, King had a lightning-rod perspective shift. 

“As I am sitting in that [hospital] bed, worst moments of my life, I hear a voice say, ‘You are the pencil,’” King said. “A phrase so weird and so wild, so remotely different than anything I could ever understand, is said to me. ‘You are the pencil.’ And today, years later, I understand that not only am I the pencil, you are the pencil too.”

On the outside of a brand-new pencil, it’s sharp with an untouched coat of paint and eraser. It hasn’t been chewed up yet; it hasn’t done homework or taxes, King said. But everything that makes a pencil a pencil is what’s on its inside, not the outside, he noted. 

“This pencil has got everything going for it,” King said. “But along comes tragedy. 

“I am getting ready to apply pressure to this pencil, and it’s going to look like all is lost,” he told the audience.

King held up a brand-new pencil and broke it. 

“Most people would throw this pencil away, but this is what God allowed me to see. With beauty, tragedy. No, it is not nice, and no, you don’t want to have the worst day of your life happening, but this is the beauty of it,” King said, before taking the broken pencil and sharpening it. “This sharpener is a device that is used to take that pencil from where it is right now back to a pristine state.”

The sharpener symbolizes the opportunity to grow during life’s most difficult moments, King said.

“Those days that make you cry, those days that make you pray,” King said. “Days that makes you yell, and nobody’s around … Life is challenging for you, maybe right now. Not because something wrong is done, but because something really right is about to happen. And you know it’s not going to be easy, but it will be worth it.”