Myra Yvonne Chouteau was born on March 7, 1929, in Fort Worth, Texas and died on January 24, 2016.

She was one of the “Five Moons” or Native prima ballerinas of Oklahoma.

In 1962, she and her husband, Miguel Terekhov, was the founder of the first fully accredited university dance program in the United States, the School of Dance at the University of Oklahoma.

Also a member of the Shawnee Tribe, she is also of ethnic French ancestry, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Maj. Jean Pierre Chouteau.

Maj. Jean Pierre Chouteau was from the Chouteau family of St. Louis, he established Oklahoma’s oldest European-American settlement, at the present site of Salina, in 1796.

As a young Oklahoma ballerina was inspired to dance at age four after seeing the great ballerina Alexandra Danilova dance in Oklahoma City,

Yvonne Chouteau received her dance education at the School of American Ballet in New York before Danilova recommended her in 1943 to Serge Denham for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. At 14, she was the youngest dancer ever accepted.

Myra’s first solo role was as Prayer in Coppelia. (1945).

By the time she was 18, she was the youngest member inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.

She was the wife of Miguel Terekhov, (1956).

And on October 8, 1997, Governor Frank Keating designated her an Oklahoma Treasure.

Yvonne Chouteau passed away at 86 yrs old.