Alexis Holcomb is an energetic Spartan who also has a very interesting past.
Photo by Ed Gloor
When meeting Alexis Holcomb – or Ali as her friends call her – one might not imagine the story she has to tell. “Ali is a super goofy person; she puts a lot on the table,” says close friend, Mckenzie Brown. And after sitting down with Ali and asking her about her past, this reporter was amazed by her story.
Ali was born on December 7, 1993 in Temirtau, Kazakhstan and soon found herself in an orphanage. Ali doesn’t remember her birth parents, but she was told stories about them and what they looked like from the caretakers at the orphanage. “Now these are just stories so we don’t really know if they are true or not, but I was told my mom was very young when she had me. She was around fourteen or fifteen, which is why she couldn’t take care of me, and my dad was in his late thirties. My mom was Korean and my dad was Russian and Jewish,” said Ali.
The orphanage was Ali’s home for ten months until she was adopted. “I do remember little things, just little glimpses. One of those little flashbacks, I guess, is a caretaker handing me a biscuit,” Ali said with a little giggle.
One thing that the orphanage did, besides taking care of her, was change her name. Unbeknownst to most people, Alexis Holcomb is not her birth name; in fact, her name has been changed three times. “My real name is Macxici Natasha Passhkova, but the caretakers at the orphanage didn’t like the name. When I got there, they took the first part off and just called me Natasha. Then when I was adopted, my mom renamed me Alexis Olivia Natasha Holcomb.”
During her stay at the orphanage, a famous star came to visit and adopt. The famous person is a fog to Ali, but there was a 9News story on that person adopting a baby from Kazakhstan. Karol Ann Holcomb saw that story on television and was inspired to adopt as well. “That famous person was holding me and my mom saw me, and, well, she fell in love. The celebrity that was there actually adopted the baby in the crib next to me, so my mom still had a chance to get me,” Ali said. In 1994, Karol made her way to Temirtau and adopted Ali and brought her back to the United States.
Ali’s new home was Denver, Colorado. Growing up, Ali had to pick up English because she still spoke Russian. “I couldn’t really speak that much because I was still little, but when I did talk, it was in Russian. I would say little things like ‘no’ and ‘yes’ in Russian but my mom knew enough of that language to understand me. Just like a normal baby, though, I picked up English.”
Karol, Ali’s mom, was not done adopting yet, and she went back to Kazakhstan to get Ali’s soon to be sister, Hillary, who was two or three months old when she was brought into the Holcomb family. Hillary was originally from Kazakhstan also, but she was adopted from an orphanage in Karaganda. With a happy family of four, the third child being a son from a previous marriage, Karol was so inspired by the experience that she decided to help others adopt, so she opened her own adoption agency called Hands Across The Ocean.
Now Ali is a senior in high school and focuses most of her time on sports. Since the sixth grade, she has been playing softball and has made the varsity team here at TJ. “In sixth grade I actually wanted to go out for the volleyball team but there weren’t that many girls on the softball team, so I decided to give it a try and the first time I played, I fell in love,” said Holicomb.
Golf is a recent interest of Ali’s but she is already on the varsity team. In her sophomore year, Ali joined the team and figured out that she was really good. “I think I like golf so much because it is kind of like softball in a way. In golf, you are hitting a ball just like in softball; it’s just a different kind of swing. I don’t want to sound conceited, but I was really good at it the first time, too.”
With just a year left of high school, Ali has already begun making college plans at the University of Colorado at Bolder. “That college really stuck out to me because I like the outdoors and that kind of environment.” Ali plans on studying physical therapy; she wants to major in biology and then go to medical school. “Currently, I am working on getting the Chick Evan’s Scholarship, for golf, which would be a full ride so I can go to CU.” Ali’s interest for this career came about because her mom inspired her. Ali’s mom used to work in the emergency room, and Ali likes the concept of helping people.
So far, Ali has enjoyed her experience at Thomas Jefferson and says she will be sad to leave. “I really like TJ because it is so small, like a little family. It is also really easy to get on sports teams because it is so small.” Ali is very active when it comes to clubs at TJ. “I was in Be The Change, but I don’t really know what happened with that, and Skills USA. Skills USA is a competition for all different categories, but I did it for website applications. I really liked it because I already knew a lot about making websites from Mr. Esparza’s class.”
Ali continues to come to school everyday with a smile on her face and make people laugh. As Ali likes to say, “Laugh as much as you breathe, and love as long as you live.”
