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Born in Hastings, Pennsylvania, circa 1910, Karen Irvin moved with her family to Seattle, Washington at age 8. It was there that she began to study ballet with Caird Leslie, Lee Foley, and ultimately with Nellie Cornish of the Cornish School (now Cornish College of the Arts). She studied briefly in New York, then returned to the Northwest where she opened a ballet studio in West Seattle. Irvin joined the Cornish faculty in 1945, and in 1952 she became head of the Institution's dance department. Four years later, she co-founded Cornish Ballet -- an early contributor to the regional ballet movement -- with her longtime companion, Mea Hartman. Irvin headed the dance department at Cornish for 27 years, and was responsible for designing the College's dance degree program. She trained dancers for companies such as the Joffrey Ballet, Twyla Tharp Dance, the Pennsylvania Ballet, and National Ballet of Canada, and worked to raise Seattle's stature in the dance world. Miss Irvin died of heart failure on March 2, 1999, at the age of 89.