Something Special: Local athlete's incredible story keeps getting better

“She knows all of it,” her mother said.

“But her favorite thing is just to condense it into saying … ‘you came to Russia, you gave me a bottle and you brought me home’.”

If only it was that simple.

It is, however, precisely the sweetly optimistic, beautifully uncomplicated way of digesting the darkest parts of life that brought T.K. Horton — born with half of a leg and left to die in a pile of leaves — 6,000 miles across the world to play basketball, become a homecoming princess and be an inspiration to anyone who crosses her path.

“T.K. is amazing,” her mother, Tamara, said.

As the story goes, the long version, at least, a pair of women in the rugged mountains outside Vladikavkaz, Russia were hunting for wild mushrooms in 1999. At some point, they heard what sounded like a baby crying.

They called the police and an officer arrived to discover a heartbreaking sight: a badly neglected and severely malnourished 18-month-old child, wrapped in a blanket inside a pile of fallen leaves. The officer picked up the child, named her Tamara Umarovna Kurgaryeva, after his squadron (Umarovna) and his own last name (Kurgaryeva), and brought her back to town.

Half a world away, Tamara Horton was waiting for a sign.

She and her husband, Nate, already had two biological children but were looking to adopt. They were listening to VCY America, a syndicated Christian radio network, as they put their kids to bed.

Tamara picks the story up from there.

“We had been praying about adopting but didn’t know what to do,” she said.

“I actually prayed three things: that the Lord would provide us the money, that I (wouldn’t) have to pick out of a book, and that her name would mean something to our family.”

“On the radio, the lady says ‘before this program starts, I just learned about this little girl. She was left in the forest of Russia to die, she’s missing her leg and her name is Tamara K.’ And so, our names being the same, we called.”

It took only four months from the first phone call to bring the young girl — whose name they would shorten to Tamara Kay Horton — stateside, but not without more hurdles for the Horton’s to jump.

In 1999 they were woefully unprepared to adopt a child and, even worse, were a good $17,000 short of being able to afford it.

“We didn’t have any clue what we had to do,” Nate Horton said. “We called and they were like, ‘Umm, this is not going to work’.”

As for the money, it came together quicker than anyone expected.

“We believe that God provided (the money) because we just didn’t have it,” Nate continued. “We had friends and family that gave us money … and the same radio program (VCY America) in a one-hour show raised about $6,000 for us.”

Then there was yet another obstacle.

At the time of her adoption, U.S. citizens were not permitted to travel to Vladikavkaz because of local military conflicts associated with the Kosovo War. So the Horton’s were detoured to Mineralnye Vody, more than 130 miles away.

“They took us up to the room where she was lying in bed,” Tamara said.

“We picked her up and held her and talked to her for 20 minutes and then we had to let her go.”

Those 20 minutes were more than enough for Tamara and Nate, and a few days later they had a visitor.

“They knocked on the door to where we were, handed her to us and then she was ours,” Tamara recalled with a chuckle.

Since moving to the Flathead Valley in 2000, T.K. has thrived. She’s been fitted for a handful of prosthetics under her right knee as she’s grown — she keeps a box of 10-12 legs she’s outgrown at home — and for the last six to seven years has been involved with Special Olympics at Glacier High School, no sport more so than basketball.

“It’s my favorite sport,” T.K. said of her hoops career. “It’s more fun, you get to run around a lot and I get to go on trips.”

T.K. has traveled with the Glacier Area’s Special Olympics teams across the state, although she was unable to join the team in Helena for the State Basketball Games, which begin today, because of a recent right knee operation.

Through those multiple operations and regular doctor visits, T.K. has never slowed, continuing to play basketball, ski, and boldly act without hesitation.

“She’s always been one to go after things,” Tamara said.

“After she got a prosthesis she was determined to walk. She quit eating, quit talking and focused on walking, and when she got that she started talking and eating again. She doesn’t let anything stand in her way.”

“Everybody loves T.K.,” Nate said. “She has some physical and mental stuff that could hold her back but it doesn’t.

“She’s just outgoing, always positive and brightens everybody’s day. You’d never know that she is missing one leg below the knee. It doesn’t really affect her. She’s just a great, positive person.”

T.K. is a special education student at Glacier, afflicted with what Nate calls “mental delays”, the cause of which are unknown but likely stem from some part of her harrowing early months in Russia.

Glacier’s principal, Callie Langohr, has had the opportunity to see T.K. flourish in her school.

“T.K. has set no limits on her potential,” she said. “She is an absolutely incredible young woman, the definition of optimism.”

Her longtime Special Olympics coach, Jenny Griswold, gave just one word to describe her.

“Tenacity,” she said. “She’s tough, she doesn’t give up and she’s got a great sense of humor. She’s just a great kid, a great all-around kid.”

With a wry smile, T.K. called upon that sense of humor to pick a slightly different word to describe her coach.

“Troublemaker,” she answered. “They’re really good coaches except they like to tease me a lot, so I tease them back.”

This fall, T.K. was voted to the homecoming court by her classmates, a testament to her infectious personality.

“It was really fun,” she said of being introduced at halftime of Glacier’s football game on Sept. 25.

“I was a homecoming princess, not a homecoming queen … yet.”

T.K. is on pace to graduate from Glacier in June and excited move to the next phase of her life.

Tamara and Nate have since adopted five more children, giving them eight in total.

And Griswold and the Glacier Area Special Olympics team will continue to celebrate the best of sports.

“The first year I (coached) skiing, I had a young man whose mom was in tears and I thought she was upset,” Griswold said.

“And she said, ‘no, Jenny, they told me he wouldn’t live to (age) two, much less you’re taking him to the top of the mountain and he’s coming down.’

“These athletes are a true example of what athleticism is. They’ve gone through so much and they’re just excited to be out there.”

It’s a familiar sounding story to the Horton’s, condensed to include just the best parts.