Teresa Jordan grew up in the fourth generation of a Laramie County ranching family that had been involved in Cheyenne Frontier Days from its earliest days. She served as Miss Frontier in 1975. Her experience on the ranch and working with Cheyenne Frontier Days inspired her lifelong devotion to preserving, promoting, and educating people about the American West. She promotes western ideals as an author, artist, storyteller, photographer, performer, and lecturer.

Teresa has published eight books on western heritage, most notably Cowgirls- Women of the American West and the ranch memoir Riding the White Horse Home. She wrote the script for the documentary Cowgirls, which won the Western Heritage Award from the Cowboy Hall of Fame for best documentary in 1985. She has given hundreds of talks about the west locally, nationally, and internationally. She has exhibited her photography in many western states and her show Ranch Women of the West was featured at the CFD Old West Museum. She worked as a regular freelancer for ProRodeo Sports News and photographed in the arena at CFD and the National Finals Rodeo, winning PRCA Best Still Photograph of the Year in 1978. Teresa and her husband, musician and folklorist Hal Cannon, established the CFD Old West Museum’s Marie Jordan Bell Lecture Series. She has served as a source on rodeo queens and female rodeo contestants for many books.

Teresa received her BA in History from Yale University where she graduated summa
cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Her thesis, "Wyoming Ranchers During the Great Depression," won the McClintock Prize for History of the American West. With Hal Cannon, she created and produced "The Open Road," stories from the Outback West, for Public Radio International's The Savvy Traveler. She has been deeply involved in the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering for nearly thirty years and recently served as liaison for that group to learn volunteerism from Cheyenne Frontier Days.