DOUBLE THE SUCCESS: Tyler twins graduate top of their class, will continue twinning in college career path

Published 11:00 pm Saturday, May 22, 2021

They’ve witnessed patients die, worked long hours without having a chance to eat, all while still managing to rank in the top 10 of their class and being full-time varsity athletes. This iconic duo finally walked the stage Saturday to receive their diplomas from Tyler High School.

Fraternal twin sisters, Alexy and Eriana Valle, have broken barriers in their family with their strength to juggle multiple things at once. This fall, the two are honored to be the first in their family to attend college.

The Valle twins credit their ability to multitask to their Hispanic parents, who the twins say have carved the path for them as they sacrificed and motivated the sisters to be the best they can be.

“For us, since we’re going to be the first generation to go to college, we feel like we owe it to our parents. To make them happy, to be successful. Right now they’re doing extra jobs, working extra hours so we can go to college and you know, make it out of Tyler. In the future I hope to tell them that we made it because of them. Being first generation, there’s so much pressure to that,” Alexy Valle said.

Alexy is fifth in the senior class and Eriana is 10th. They both received numerous scholarships and always aimed to be in the top 10% to get into the college of their dreams.

“Ever since freshman year, our parents required us to get A’s and if we didn’t get A’s, we couldn’t play the sport we were in. Ever since freshman year, we hardly got any B’s,” Alexy Valle said.

“We always knew we wanted to be Top 10, no matter what,” Eriana Valle added.

Wanting to continue to explore the world together and share their college experience with each other, the Valle twins both decided to enroll in the same college.

They plan to attend the University of Texas at Austin in the fall to pursue the same career path — sports medicine.

“We’ve always liked sports. Sadly, we’re always injured. So we fell in love with the sports medicine aspect of it. And we got a lot of encouragement to get better through the athletic trainers, doctors so in the future we wanted to pass that on and do something related to that,” Alexy Valle said.

“We also wanted to do the same career in the future, which is weird because we’re twins,” she added.

With the two planning to attend UT Austin, doubling the cost of everything has not been an easy responsibility for their parents to prepare for.

Their parents are working harder to make ends meet for their college expenses.

Their father, Rene Ramiro Valle, works two jobs, one as a produce manager at Brookshire’s and he also has his own lawn and landscaping business.

Their mother, Rosana Valle, is a referral coordinator for Tyler Family Circle of Care. The girls’ father was born and raised in Tyler and their mother moved to Tyler from California. The couple both grew up in the United States and Mexico.

Thanks to the connection Tyler ISD has between Tyler High School and the Career and Technology Center, the Valle twins were able to receive 32 dual-credit hours within two years.

They are both certified emergency medical technicians.

“Being part of EMT, we witnessed death hands-on, gunshot wounds, we saw everything. Luckily our school had that connection with the Career and Technology Center that we were able to experience things that we probably wouldn’t have in other high schools,” Alexy Valle said

The twins reflected on how stressful their senior year was to them, attempting to manage volleyball, academics and EMT responsibilities.

“During our volleyball season, it was stressful. We would usually do night shifts, right after school, like probably 5:30 p.m. till 5:30 a.m. the next day. We would go after volleyball games, straight to the clinicals. Literally going straight after school to that. I was away for 24 hours, I’ve never done that so my whole body reacted differently and I didn’t adjust to that,” Eriana Valle said.

Alexy Valle added, “I think our first shift, 4:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., we were brand new to it. We didn’t know we could bring lunch, we went 12 hours without eating.”

The Valle twins emphasize how thankful they are for Tyler High and everyone they met during their high school career.

“For us it was the teachers and the coaches, their support that they have shown for us. Anything from college to everything in life. They helped us from freshmen year to now. Our coach Claudia Viramontes was one of our role models, our anatomy and physiology teacher, our counselor Mrs. Anderson, our athletic trainers, they all had an impact on our life and that had some type of decision on our schooling and career aspect,” Eriana Valle said. 

“We are who we are because of our parents and our teachers and our family,” Alexy Valle added. 

Along with numerous leadership roles and activities, some of the activities they were recognized for were volleyball team captains, National Honor Society, varsity soccer, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and senior leadership.