Standing on the bridge of the USS Lake Champlain off the coast of Somalia on Christmas Day 2010, Alexa Gibbs realized she wasn’t in Springfield anymore. She was the Officer of the Deck, in charge of the guided missile cruiser as it traversed the coast of Africa looking for pirates. Operating as a pirate deterrent, the Lake Champlain had sailed from San Diego through the Panama Canal to the Azores and the Straights of Gibraltar through the Suez Canal to the east coast of Africa. The year before, in April 2009, the ship Maersk Alabama, had been hijacked by Somali pirates and its captain, Richard Phillips, taken hostage. This incident provides the basis for the Tom Hanks movie "Captain Phillips." Phillips was rescued by Navy Seals. During the rescue, three Somali pirates were killed, and one was taken into custody. The surviving pirate was later convicted of hijacking, kidnapping and hostage-taking. He was sentenced to 33 years and 9 months and is incarcerated in the Federal Correctional Institution in Terra Haute, Indiana. The Lake Champlain and its crew were there to protect the merchant vessels and make sure what happened to the Maersk Alabama, did not happen again.
When Alexa graduated from Springfield High School in 2004, she never could have imagined where her travels would take her. But, as she reflects on that time she remembers that she knew during her college search that she “needed to go see more.” She definitely accomplished that. As a student at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Alexa played volleyball and learned the skills necessary to help be part of a team operating the world’s strongest naval fleet. She spent two of her college summers in Hawaii and the other traversing the east coast from Boston to Maine, learning how to sail and navigate on the ocean. Alexa graduated as a Surface Warfare Officer in 2009.
Alexa has fond memories of her time growing up in Springfield, where she attended Dubois, Lincoln, Grant, and then Springfield High School. Alexa remembers having great teachers, including Sue Childress at Grant Middle School and her Driver’s Education instructor, Laurie Dvorak. Ms. Dvorak never could have imagined when instructing Alexa on the rules of the road that she would take those driving skills to the U.S. Navy halfway around the world. Alexa honed her volleyball skills at Helen Dulle's volleyball camps and played at Springfield High before playing Division 1 volleyball at the Naval Academy.
After graduating from the Naval Academy, Alexa flew to Singapore to meet her first ship, the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain. The United States Navy operates many different types of ships to protect American interests around the world, including guided missile cruisers, which have helicopter assets, provide anti-submarine missions and can fire Tomahawk and surface-to-air missiles.
When Alexa returned to San Diego from her deployment to Africa and the Middle East she transferred to another guided missile cruiser, the USS Antietam, which soon sailed to Japan. After returning from her deployment to the Far East, she was assigned to shore duty in San Diego, where she served as an instructor in the Basic Division Officer Course, a new eight-week training program for recent Academy and ROTC Navy graduates before reporting to their first ship.
Alexa got married in 2014, and in 2015, she transferred to the Navy Reserves. Alexa currently lives in St. Louis with her husband and two children. Her parents, Jeff and Susan Gibbs, still live in Springfield, and she visits often. While glad she had her opportunity to “go see more,” at this point in her life, Alexa is happy to be back in the Midwest, although she acknowledges that she sometimes misses the “fast-paced environment and the camaraderie of being on a ship.”
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