2,000 Baylor students are graduating this weekend, and among them is a young woman with the ultimate story of survival. Allyson Ray's birth in Temple made her the smallest baby in Texas history to survive.
She was born 10 inches long and weighed only 14 ounces.
"At first they weren't sure if I was going to survive," Allyson said.
In 1989, Allyson was born three-and-a-half months early to Barry and Tina Ray at Scott and White Hospital. She was the smallest baby in Texas to live, and even then, it would be a tough road.
"The doctors were saying I would be developmentally challenged," Allyson said.
But she wouldn't have it.
Graduating from an elite scholar's program in biochemistry, Allyson's been a Presidential Scholar in every year of college. She even skipped third grade, and graduated high school as salutatorian.
"Once you start working so hard to catch up, there's nothing in your brain that tells you you're caught up to stop working," her father Barry Ray said.
"I tended to ignore the nay-sayers and the doubters and just set goals for myself and do what I was going to do," Allyson said.
Allyson moved away from Central Texas when she was seven, but knew she wanted to come back and attend Baylor University.
Reporter: Matt Luedke/Joshua Skurnik Photographer: Joshua Skurnik
