Kenny Tedford: Deaf, Blind, Brain Damaged And Winning In Life. Virtually Speaking Ep. 48

Kenny Tedford Jr. was born almost totally deaf, partially blind, and with brain damage. He has also survived cancer, heart attacks, and temporary paralysis from breaking his neck. Despite all of these challenges, Kenny has accomplished an enormous amount as a man of many talents: An author, humorist, life coach, motivational speaker, counselor, teacher, ambassador, master storyteller, actor, and entrepreneur.

Kenny was told by his teachers, counselor, and the Board of Education that he would never pass the 3rd grade. He proved them wrong by graduating with honors and then attending Gallaudet University for the Deaf in Washington, D.C. He later transferred to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN., earning his B.A. in Theatre and then went on to earn a Masters Degree in Storytelling from East Tennessee State University. Kenny has served as the Executive Director of both the Tennessee Council for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing and the Communications Center for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing. He has also worked as a career counselor and employment specialist for the disabled, and was appointed as a Red Cross Ambassador representing the United States around the world.

Kenny will inspire you with his compelling storytelling, his hilarious sense of humor, and his strong faith – even in the face of adversity. He has shown by his life that disabilities, heart attacks, falling off a cliff, and cancer can all be used for good.

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Kenny Tedford: Deaf, Blind, Brain Damaged And Winning In Life.

Joining us is Kenny Tedford Jr. Born almost totally deaf, partially blind and with brain damage, Kenny has survived everything from cancer, heart attacks and breaking his neck, and yet he\’s accomplished an enormous amount as a man of many talents. He’s an author, actor, humorist, life coach, motivational speaker, counselor, teacher, master storyteller and entrepreneur. He was told by his teachers, counselors and the board of education that he would never pass the third grade. He proved them all wrong by graduating with honors and attending Gallaudet University for the deaf in Washington, DC and later transferred to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee earning his BA in Theater.

Kenny went on to earn a Master\’s Degree in Storytelling from East Tennessee State University and has served as the Executive Director of both the Tennessee Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Communication Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. He also has worked as a career counselor, an employment specialist for the disabled, and was appointed as a Red Cross Ambassador representing the United States. Kenny will inspire you with his storytelling ability, sense of humor and strong faith even in the face of adversity. He was shown by his life that even heart attacks, falling off a cliff, losing his parents at a young age and cancer can be used for good. Please join me now with the incredible Kenny Tedford.

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Kenny Tedford, thank you for joining me on the show. How are you doing?

Chris, I’m doing great and honored to be here.

Four Days With Kenny Tedford: Life Through the Eyes of a Child Trapped in a Partially Blind & Deaf Man\’s Body

It’s an honor to have you here as well. I\’ve been looking forward to this. It\’s been a great time getting to know you. It’s a wonderful journey and such an inspirational story that you have, one that people might take a look at, have some preconceived thoughts, and some interpretations of what kind of person you\’re going to be or what you\’re going to be like. People have a lot of labels for other people in this world and our society. You have certainly a lot of things that are true about you. You\’re partially paralyzed, blind in one eye, deaf and also have a learning disability because of a brain injury and still, none of that has stopped you. You\’ve accomplished a lot of incredible things and inspired a lot of people. I love telling people about you because it\’s awesome to see how inspired they get and what the reviews are when people have heard you speak or when they read your book. It’s a great book called Four Days with Kenny Tedford that was written by Paul Smith who is a great author, and the author of Lead with a Story.

I love to start in the beginning. You were from a family of nine kids. Your parents died when you were eight years old. In the second grade, you were told you were never going to pass the third grade. You prove them wrong. You graduated with honors and attended Gallaudet University in Washington DC, which is a university for the deaf. You later got a BA in Theater and a Master’s Degree in Storytelling. I didn\’t even know that existed. How do you get a Master\’s Degree in Storytelling?

I heard about it on the day of my BA graduation at the University of Tennessee where I grew up. People were contacting and congratulating me on my graduation. They said, “Why don\’t you come to Johnson City and get your Master\’s in Storytelling?” I found out that Tennessee State University is the only university in the world that has a Master\’s Degree in Storytelling. I came to Johnson City, attended and graduated with great honor. I did great. I love storytelling.

You are a great storyteller. Speaking of that, let\’s go back a little bit and talk about your story. That must have been a rough start to life for you. Your parents died when you were young. Your siblings and you got split up, and four of you went with your father’s sister. Tell us a little bit about what happened.

My father died a week before Christmas when I was eight. He had a heart attack. Five months later, my mother had an aneurysm and died in May. I was particular to mental health. In the early ‘50s people with disability, especially the deaf, hard of hearing and the blind go to a mental hospital and you’re put in a basement. I was ready to go. I was a little kid sitting on a suitcase with my shorts and a bow tie. My sister came running out, “We\’re going to Memphis, Tennessee.” “Why? I don\’t want to stay there. I want to be near my parents where they were buried.”

The four of us, two sisters, a brother and me all went to Memphis and that\’s where I grew up. I went on past the third grade. I would be told I would quit. Not to offend anybody but back then, we call it retarded. I was labeled retarded. From the 1st, 2nd, 3rd to the 4th grade, I was already deprived of education, labeled retarded and were told I\’d never amount to anything. When I passed the third grade, even my foster father would never have anything to do with me. He never hugged me or never say he loved me. All he ever did was pat me on my head. I do love him. He took us under his roof. I\’m grateful for that and for keeping us four together. My mother was married before and she had five children, but we don\’t say half-brothers and half-sisters. That doesn\’t make sense. Which part am I going to get, the upper part or the lower part? We\’re all one big family.

That\’s an unbelievable start right there. Yet, you always had this determination to win, to prove everybody wrong, to achieve, learn and push yourself. That\’s very consistent throughout your story. You fell off a cliff and you hit your head.

[bctt tweet=\”Be careful how you say \’hey.\’\” username=\”calentertainmnt\”]

I hit all my body. I was tumbling and kept bouncing, then my head hit the side of a rock. I didn\’t know until the next morning when I was kickboxing that my neck was with cracks. When I went to kickboxing class with one of my roommates, we got to live near where we workout, he tried to swing his leg to hit me in the head. If you know kickboxing, you have to move your whole body, but I just moved my head, not knowing the neck bone was already cracked from the fall. It broke and I fell to the floor. I became paralyzed from my neck down and they said I’ll never walk again. If I did walk again, I\’ll be walking with a cane but I proved them wrong in that too.

At that point, you\’ve also got some brain damage that you didn\’t have before.

I had brain damage by the time when I was born. My mother fell down when she was seven months pregnant. We were rushed to the hospital and they pulled me out. We kid around that I\’m holding on because I didn\’t want to come to the crazy world. They put me in the incubator for about two months. From that, I lost a lot of oxygen because the umbilical cord was wrapped around my throat. That\’s all the stuff you\’ve mentioned, paralysis, legally blind and deaf. When I fell off the cliff and hit my head, I had some hearing in my right ear but I became deaf when I hit the rock.

You became even more deaf at that point.

I depend on lip-reading like when I\’m dealing with you. People is not understanding deafness. You can say be deaf. I am deaf legally by the law. I took speech training for six years and nobody would tell me to shut up. I didn\’t learn sign language until I was 21 when I went to Gallaudet. I\’ve never met a deaf in my life. I didn\’t know what deafness was. I knew I was labeled retarded and slow. Even now, I have a hard time reading stuff, but with the help of a lot of friends, I’m doing what I do now, performing and stuff like that, especially in comedy.

It’s amazing and you’re hilarious. I do love telling people that you\’re an expert lip reader and that I\’ve seen you in other interviews and action. It\’s amazing from far away or if somebody is looking down, you can still read their lips and understand. I don\’t think you have ever missed a word. You\’ve never asked me, “What did you say or can you say that again?” It\’s pretty remarkable how good you are. Is there a field that people can go into like you who are also great lip readers? Is that a job that you ever had for anybody else?

Yes. I could get a job as an interpreter for lip reading. There\’s a lot of deaf out there also. Not all of us are the same. If a deaf was at a convention and didn\’t know sign language, I can stand in front of him with aids, but I can\’t do it anymore because I have to be looking at the speaker. It’s called Oral Interpreting.

You also had some other interesting jobs over the years. You were an Executive Director for the Tennessee Council for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and some other similar jobs to that as well.

One thing led to another. I did job coaching and job career counseling. If you put all together twenty years, I did it in three years. I became a director for six years. I went back to job coaching and I became a Director of the Deaf Center in Memphis. I became a Director of the Deaf in Jackson, Tennessee. I went back to job coaching again with a lot of deaf. I enjoyed it. Right before I graduate from high school, I got a letter from the National Red Cross in Washington DC. They pick two people from each country of the world to go to a big conference called the Friendship Tour. They pick one with a disability, one non-disabled, and I will show what’s the disability. I got to go to Norway, Switzerland and London. I got to meet people.

Engaging Storyteller: There\’s a lot of deaf people out there, and they don\’t sign. Not all of us are the same.

I thought once I left America and I got over there, people quit laughing all the time at me. When I got over there, they\’re laughing again. I can\’t get away from that. I realized that’s the gift that God has given me. It’s to make people cheerful and happy. I look at the good side. We all have good sides and I don\’t care what anybody said. I\’ve done that and I got into getting my Master\’s in Storytelling and start traveling. I\’ve done a motivational talk with another friend of mine that\’s in my book. His name is Marty. He’s quadriplegic. The day I met him, we hit it off. I was like, “You’ve got to meet Paul and see it all.” He was a wonderful young man. He passed away in a car accident but he taught me a lot. He blows through a straw. Sometimes, we play games. He gets behind the straw and talks to me. I’d moved my head so I can’t see his lip but he let me miss it behind the straw. I’m like, “Will you stop that?” I take the straw and move it. We performed together. We did motivational talks and people were freaking out. Two people making fun of each other. It was a great time with Marty until he passed away.

That sounds like a great friendship. I’m sorry for your loss. Tell us a little bit more about this Red Cross job that you had. You were an Ambassador for the Red Cross and they took you to Europe. What was your job? What was it that they had you doing there?

There was a title, Ambassador for the Red Cross. Every year, they have a theme called the Friendship Tour. In my world as a person with a disability, I got to speak to this big group from 50 different countries. They all knew English but most of them were trying to understand me because of my speech. They would tell me like a lot of people in America, “Slow down and talk louder,” and so I did. My job was to teach all the other countries what we do to people with disabilities like people with disabilities can work. I introduce to a lot of countries that blind people can ride horses and they were shocked, “What? Who was with them?” “They\’re independent. They’re out in the field riding a horse.” I tell in our country, deaf work. We don\’t just sit at home and sat in the rocking chair. We do a great job. We have deaf lawyers and doctors.

There are a lot of wonderful deaf people who are doing career. Even in my field, we\’d have a deaf writer and a deaf motivational speaker. The thing I did was open the eyes of those countries to give them a job. In a lot of countries, when you\’re born with a disability, many parents will disown you and you live on the streets. It\’s a tragedy. That\’s what my goal is with what I do now. It’s to get out there and teach people that we\’re all different. I share a lot of adversity that I have overcome. We could spend three hours together and it still wouldn\’t be enough. I was educating and showing people that we\’re all the same. The only difference is I can’t hear you.

That reminds me of one of my favorite stories that you tell. It’s the story about the magic crayon.

When I was put in first education, I was already labeled. Even when I was in Dallas, the school would not let me go into a regular classroom with other kids and tell my parents, “Kenny has to learn it.” When I went to Memphis, the same public school system said that I couldn\’t do this and that. The class started. I went to Memphis in second grade after my mother had died that following fall. They were all treated special and sometimes, they would go crazy. Somebody would call me and they\’re like, “You’re special.” It’s the way you say it. You can say, “You’re special, Chris,” but when they look at me, “He’s special.” That\’s the one thing I teach people, be careful how you say things.

The teacher passed out the boxes of crayons. In my days, there was a little box of 24 crayons. We call it Crayola and you get a big yellow piece of paper. She passed them all out but when it got to me, she took out only three colors, black, white and gray. I’m like, “I want the rest of the colors.” She said, “Kenny, you\’re retarded. You\’re not creative. You can\’t think of a good thing. Just draw with those,” then she walked on with a bunch of crayons, the other 21. I love to draw so I went ahead and drew a picture. Every two weeks, somebody would come in. Back then we would call it a counselor, but now they’re called a psychiatrist. They study people who cannot communicate and people with a speech problem. They wanted to make sure I don’t draw a picture of a teacher with a knife in her back. They\’re either here to put me away or something.

I drew a picture of a house with a dog. I made dark clouds and made sure it’s raining or snowing. It was a black and white photo, you might say. He thought, “That poor kid can\’t be creative at all,” not realizing that’s only at the color she\’d given me. I would get a D or a D-, sometimes an F. They give me grades and make sure I’m still normal that I\’m not going to kill anybody or do something crazy. It just so happens that after about three weeks into the class, a young boy in the front row raised his hand, he turned around and look at me. It’s a small classroom, so I thought somebody\’s looking at me. I looked at him and I wave. He looked at me and looked back around to the teacher. The teacher came with a ruler in her hand and she said, “What?” He goes, “I want to go sit beside Kenneth.” She looked at the student, “You can\’t sit back there.” “Why can\’t I?” “Because he’s retarded.”

The thing is all the students had to learn the A, B, C, capitals, states and presidents. All I had to do is draw with a crayon. I had it made. I don\’t know what\’s wrong with you all. You can call me whatever you want.” When she said that, all the kids started waving their hand and the teacher got up and said, “What do you all want?” They all turned to me and turned back to the teacher, “We want to be retarded like Kenneth.” I was like, “Yes.” I was accepted for that label but not understanding what it meant until years later. The point I’m trying to make is I\’m an innocent child not understanding what was happening. That\’s where a lot of people are today. They want to be accepted somehow. I got home and my mother even asked me what happened. “They waved,” that’s what I told her. She’d go, “You\’re smart. You\’re not dumb. Don\’t listen to what they say.”

That afternoon, when the teacher told all the kids to put their hands down, the kid decided, “We can\’t be like him.” I was feeling bad so I left the class. I’m walking down the hall with my backpack and I’m dragging it. There\’s one teacher who always says hi to me. She was at the cafeteria monitor. We had those in those days. It’s a hall monitor. She greeted the kid coming into this school. She would say hi to the parents. She\’s a wonderful, sweet lady. I wish I knew her name. I do wish she was my teacher. She told me to come to her class. She said, “What\’s wrong? Why are you so sad?”

I told her the story about the teacher calling me retarded, dumb, and I would never make it past the third grade. She opens a cabinet and pulls out a box of 24 crayons and yellow paper. She rolled it up in my backpack, dropped the Crayola, zipped it and go, “You listen to me. You are an amazing storyteller. When you describe something, you’re all in. I love when you talked about life. You just got to the top of this smoke. You put it in detail. I’m saying this out of love. You got the goofiest face but the funniest face in any kid I\’ve ever seen. You\’re going to be good when you grow up.”

[bctt tweet=\”Just be yourself. If somebody doesn\’t appreciate what you did, it\’s their loss.\” username=\”calentertainmnt\”]

I didn\’t understand a lot of that. I’m just being cheered up. I went to the class the next day and I attended the picnic table. I unrolled the yellow paper and took out my crayon. There’s a butterfly that landed on my shoulder and it was flapping. It’s a yellow one but a blue one landed on my hand then another one landed on this arm with different colors. I\’m like, “Where is it coming from?” I look to my right and there’s a bush. I didn\’t know that until years later that if there’s a flower bush, that attracts butterflies. That\’s what I get later. I didn’t know that. It\’s a butterfly farm. That’s what I call it. It was loaded with butterflies and all of a sudden, it hit me. I start drawing a picture.

I went to school that day. The counselor came in and sat next to me with the look, “Give me the picture. I will give you another grade.” I handed it and he unrolled it. I\’m watching his face and his eyes are big. He\’s looking at my drawing. He looked at me and looked at my drawing, “Beautiful. I love the color. Is that a woman lying on the back of a butterfly?” I looked at him and I go, “Yup.” He goes, “Who\’s the woman?” “That\’s my mama flying around to make sure you give me an A.” He almost had tears on his face. It was watery. I realized I was making a difference just with a drawing and making it colorful. That got me started. I called it the magical crayons, the butterfly, the cottage and my mama. I went home with a picture. She unrolled it. I didn\’t see it until I got home. In the corner, he wrote, “Great.” He gave me an A+ and said, “Keep up the group work.” My mother started crying. She was hugging me. I’m like, “Mom, guys don\’t like being hugged by mama. Are you going to cry every time I do something good?” “Yes, baby, I\’m going to cry.” “I\’m going to quit doing anything good so then you’re not.”

Engaging Storyteller: We all have good sides, and I really don\’t care what anybody said.

The beauty of it was I\’m now learning and realizing that I could make people laugh or smile. I don\’t mean to bring tears. I feel that\’s what I\’ve learned from my father and my mother. I love working with all kinds of organizations. My mother was an alcoholic. My brother was an alcoholic and do drugs, but he’s my brother. I didn\’t care what he does. That\’s a DNA he had to wrestle with. I got my DNA to deal with. That’s what the story is with the magical crayons. I started to realize that I can tell a story and make it colorful and talk about joy.

You are a colorful man. You are a colorful person. You are full of life and so optimistic. When people come across you, see what you\’ve had to overcome, and the different things that you\’ve had to get through, there\’s nothing but inspiration involved there. People are touched and blown away. In that great book, Four Days with Kenny Tedford, you told your whole life story. What was that process for you like writing that book? Did you learn something new about yourself or did you find a theme or a lesson that you hadn\’t realized before in that process?

Yes. I\’m glad you brought that up. I met Paul and he wanted to write a book. He said, “You need to put all your stories together. You could send me a copy.” I\’m going, “I don\’t know technology. I don\’t know squat.” He couldn\’t believe it. He thought, “No, you’re smart, you\’re pretty bright.” “I may talk bright but my brain doesn\’t connect with my lips.” He invited me to his home for four days. I told stories and believe it or not, it took 5 to 7 years for Paul to finish the book. Paul was also writing his two other books. We don\’t communicate like you and me now.

Back then, I don\’t know if Zoom was around or not but we FaceTime. Paul is recording it. He has to listen to it carefully because my speech and my voice would go up and down. Paul put a beautiful book together with all the stories. As a matter of fact, the publisher couldn’t take all the stories because there were so many so they picked the one they enjoyed. I learned from this. Telling my story over and over. I found myself being in the audience. I found myself telling the story and I started crying. I have a drama story in there. I don\’t like talking about it but I know people need to hear it. I laugh now about my father throwing me in the lake. What\’s that guy with the box of chocolate movie?

Forrest Gump?

I mentioned to all my counselor and psychiatrist that I have an inner child that never grew up. On the outside, I\’m becoming old. A few more years and I’d be 70. I can\’t wait but I feel like I’m 30. My point is that inner child won\’t let me become, “Where are you going? You want to go ahead and move?” I tried to do it and people keep laughing. They go, “What is wrong with you?” Even new people who just met me, they\’re telling another friend, “What’s wrong with your friend? They go, “Kenneth, why are you doing that? Be yourself.” I realized that\’s what I\’m going to do. I love doing it. Through the book, my faith got bigger. I deepened my faith. I learned a lot about the story of myself looking back and I became the audience. Even myself, when I tell that over and over, I\’m like, “Did I really fall off a cliff? Did I dream that?” There\’s a metal triangle in my throat and I had an X-ray to prove that I have metal in my throat. The metal had to keep my neck. I can\’t go back with my neck. I fall off a second cliff and I got a new knew because I destroyed my left knee. There’s a piece of metal in it like a ball. It sounds like a robot.

The thing is when something happens to you and you have no control, it\’s not easy. It\’s tough. There are times that I wanted to end my life 2 or 3 times but God intervened. He always sends somebody. Now, I’m old. I can’t live to be 100. My back gets old, my eyes are getting bad as I get older. It comes with age but I made it that far. My two sisters and my brother all passed away. They’re all gone. I\’m the only one left to protect me. My parents are gone, my grandparents, even my two foster parents, my other cousin, their cousin, they\’re like my foster parent, they’re gone. I don\’t have my other brother and sisters from my mom\’s first husband. I love them to death. They’re in Texas and Memphis. I\’ve come that far and there\’s a reason. I want to change lives, especially right now what we’re going through with the Coronavirus.

You mentioned it at the beginning, labeling. Why do we have to have labels? I don\’t understand that. Let’s accept each other. My point is I want everybody to be themselves. If somebody doesn\’t appreciate you, it\’s their loss, not yours. People now are saying, “Is he still alive?” “Yes.” When they meet me, they\’re going, “I can\’t believe how funny you are. You’re not mad? You\’re not angry?” I have those moments. When I realized that I would never walk again, I was angry. I would put my blame on God but he didn\’t strike me with lightning. Accept what you can\’t change. If you have a flat tire, what do you do? You changed the tire if you can. I can\’t even do that because I can\’t lift heavy stuff so I get to call AAA.

[bctt tweet=\”Stop what you can\’t change.\” username=\”calentertainmnt\”]

You said you were paralyzed and you couldn’t walk, but you should let everybody know that you can walk at this point. You\’re walking fine.

I’m paralyzed for about three weeks and the feelings started coming back. I was paralyzed from my neck down. I started therapy and got back in the kickboxing. I got back into everything. I love to run. I gained a lot of weight during Coronavirus. I’m going to start a new program. I have to lose weight again.

They call it the Corona diet.

I heard that. I\’ll be doing that pretty soon because I\’m starting a new journey. I\’ll be moving to Maryland. I\’m looking forward to that.

All I have to say is there are many stories. You are so funny, you are a breath of fresh air, and you are humble in all of your accomplishments and everything you stand for in life. You are one of the most inspirational people I\’ve ever met in my entire life. I have to say I\’m happy I met you, and I get the chance to tell a lot of other people about you because you\’re going to move, inspire and educate people wherever you go. That\’s what you\’ve been doing your whole life. I look forward to doing that with you more. I\’m happy you joined me here. We got to get to know you even a little bit better. Thank you so much, Kenny, for coming on here.

Engaging Storyteller: When something happens to you and you have no control, it\’s not easy.

Thank you for inviting me. It was an honor. I was looking forward to it. I hope you have a great day.

We will, and it will be even better now having had you in it. Thanks again. I will talk to you soon and God bless.

God bless you.

Important Links

• Kenny Tedford Jr.
• Four Days with Kenny Tedford

About Kenny Tedford

Kenny Tedford Jr. was born almost totally deaf, partially blind, and with brain damage. He has also survived cancer, heart attacks, and temporary paralysis from breaking his neck. Despite all of these challenges, Kenny has accomplished an enormous amount as a man of many talents: An author, humorist, life coach, motivational speaker, counselor, teacher, ambassador, master storyteller, actor, and entrepreneur.

Kenny was told by his teachers, counselor, and the Board of Education that he would never pass the 3rd grade. He proved them wrong by graduating with honors and then attending Gallaudet University for the Deaf in Washington, D.C. He later transferred to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN., earning his B.A. in Theatre and then went on to earn a Masters Degree in Storytelling from East Tennessee State University. Kenny has served as the Executive Director of both the Tennessee Council for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing and the Communications Center for the Deaf & Hard of Hearing. He has also worked as a career counselor and employment specialist for the disabled, and was appointed as a Red Cross Ambassador representing the United States around the world.

Kenny will inspire you with his compelling storytelling, his hilarious sense of humor, and his strong faith – even in the face of adversity. He has shown by his life that disabilities, heart attacks, falling off a cliff, and cancer can all be used for good.

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