For Immediate Release:
April 19, 2022
Contact:
Marie Cheek
Community Relations Coordinator
Culture & Heritage Museums
www.chmuseums.org
803.909.7312 mcheek@chmuseums.org
It is with great sadness to announce
Teresa Armour, creator of award-winning museum exhibits for Culture & Heritage Museums for over 28 years, has died at the age of 63
ROCK HILL, S.C. – Known for her eagle-eyed attention to detail, hard work and dedication in developing natural and cultural history exhibits, Teresa Armour, the exhibits manager for Culture & Heritage Museums, leaves behind a visual and tactile legacy in museum experiences. She died peacefully at her daughter’s home on April 9 after a brave battle with cancer.
Teresa Armour began her lifelong museum career first at the Schiele Museum of Natural History in Gaston County, N.C. and then joined the staff at the Museum of York County in 1994.
The Museum of York County’s exhibit, “Way Back When: Ice Age Beasts of Carolina” won awards in 2014 from the South Carolina Federation of Museums and the Southeastern Museum Conference. Armour’s meticulously crafted exhibit featured a life-sized model of Jefferson’s Ground Sloth, an extinct Ice Age resident of South Carolina. The model for the grizzly-bear-sized sloth was based on numerous fossils housed at the S.C. State Museum as researched by Steven E. Fields, Ph.D., curator of natural history at the Museum of York County. Armour and her exhibits team created the unique model of the Ice Age mammal by hand, beginning with the construction of a foam body mount to finishing with painstakingly applied artificial fur. Fields, who has worked closely alongside Armour for all of her 28 years there, says “I would propose ideas for new exhibits or additions to existing ones. Nothing seemed out of the realm of possibility for Teresa. She never once told me, ‘Oh, no. We can’t do that.’ Instead, she would often take the idea and expand it with a response like, ‘That is a good idea, but I think we can also do this…’ Of course, her development and implementation of the idea always exceeded my expectations.”
The “Way Back When” exhibit was a test of the idea for a large-scale permanent exhibit at the Museum of York County on the Ice Ages. Its success lead to the opening of “Ice Age Carolinas: Exploring Our Pleistocene Past” ten years later and was the final natural history exhibit that Armour developed.
In addition to the Museum of York County, Teresa Armour was the exhibits manager for all of Culture & Heritage Museums’ sites. She developed interpretive cultural history dioramas, exhibits and historical house staging at Historic Brattonsville. Her last completed project at the living history site was the exhibit “Liberty & Resistance: Reconstruction and the African American Community at Brattonsville 1865-1877” and the recreation of the Bratton General Store, circa 1871, installed in the front rooms of the Brick House; both exhibits opened to the public in November 2021.
Teresa Armour was a driving force in the development of the visionary, interactive and immersive environment of Main Street Children’s Museum, which was inspired by the artwork of Vernon Grant. She oversaw the project management and fabrication of its storybook-come-to-life playscape, which features the iconic pumpkin house and sailing ship. She was also the primary source in exhibiting the artwork of Vernon Grant at the Museum of York County and other notable gallery spaces in the regional community.
Teresa Lane Myers was born on September 14, 1958 in Rock Hill and was the daughter of the late Robert Boyd Myers and Eula Gay Isch Myers. She graduated from Rock Hill High School in 1975 and was a graduate of the University of South Carolina with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts. She resided in Clover and is survived by husband Tom Armour, daughter Kelsey and her husband Kenny Nethken, grandson Knox, and brother Kenneth Myers.
Online condolences may be made to the family at Obituary for Teresa (Myers) Armour | Bratton Funeral Home
IMAGES:
- Teresa Armour working on the model of the Jefferson’s Ground Sloth, an extinct resident of South Carolina that was prominently featured in the Museum of York County’s “Way Back When: Ice Age Beasts of Carolina” exhibit. Photo taken April 27, 2013 by Norma Jean Gardner.
- Teresa Armour, on the right, and Dr. Steve Fields, with Armour’s creation of the Jefferson’s Ground Sloth in the middle, display the exhibit awards from the South Carolina Federation of Museums and the Southeastern Museum Conference. Photo taken at the Museum of York County on Nov. 3, 2014 by CHM staff.
- Teresa Armour, in the center with her exhibits team, Jon Prichard on the left and Tyler Frasier on the right, in front of the Museum of York County’s newest permanent exhibit “Ice Age Carolinas: Exploring Our Pleistocene Past.” Photo taken May 28, 2021 by CHM staff.
Contact Marie Cheek for high resolution images.
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