Reared in Glenmora in south Rapides Parish, Teekell graduated in 1948 from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Teekell's law school classmates included other later Alexandria political figures U.S. Representative Gillis William Long, Judge Guy E. Humphries Jr., District Attorney Edwin O. Ware, III, and assistant DA and Ware's law partner, Gus Voltz Jr. (c. 1922–2008).
[4] Two years out of law school, Teekell won a special election in 1953 to fill the seat vacated by the death in November 1952 of freshman Representative James R. Eubank of Alexandria.
He remained in the House for seven years under Governors Robert F. Kennon and Earl Kemp Long[1] In 1975, Teekell attempted to return to the House in single-member District 26; the one-term incumbent Ned Randolph bowed out to run successfully for the Louisiana State Senate against the veteran incumbent, Cecil R. Blair.
Teekell faced a young Democratic attorney, later Republican convert, Jock Scott, in the first ever nonpartisan blanket primary held in Louisiana.