It was a big decision for a little girl. Erin Chenier was enrolled in dance and gymnastics instruction but, her parents told her, the activities were becoming too expensive. She would have to pick between the two.

Erin's choice was emphatic and, coming from a 5-year-old, fortuitously farsighted. "All I remember saying was, `Gymnastics,'" she recalls.

Now, 16 years later, Erin Chenier has reached the end of perhaps the most brilliant gymnastics career in Southeast Missouri State University's history.

Saturday at the Regional 3 meet in Lincoln, Neb., Chenier will reach another milestone in her career and another first in the Southeast gymnastics program. She will become the first Southeast gymnast to compete in the regional meet four times.

According to Southeast coach Kris Buchheister, Chenier possesses two key attributes of a gymnasts -- attitude and grace.

"She has the mental toughness that it takes, along with being a beautiful gymnast," said Buchheister. "She looks great while she's performing."

Chenier competed in her first meet (and secured her first medal after placing third on beam) at age 7, although she remembers arriving to the meet late because her parents, Dennis and Jeanette, got lost in a small town near their hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Although at one point she had to quit gymnastics for a short time when costs became prohibitive -- "To this day I don't know how I got back in it," she says -- her interest in the sport soon grew more serious.

"It was always my goal, since probably grade 8, to be in college gymnastics," she says. "And I just kept pursuing it after that. I just thought, `I'm going to college, I'm getting a scholarship.' And it became a reality at the end of grade 10, when I started making my videotapes and sending them off."

Chenier staked a claim as one of the most notable young gymnasts in Canada as she won the 1994 Canadian national championship on beam and netted the bronze medal in the all-around in the 1995 championships.

But toiling hundreds of miles from U.S. college coaches, Chenier wasn't showered with recruiting attention like gymnasts of her caliber in the United States. So as a student at Holy Cross High School in Saskatoon, Chenier stuffed her mailbox with letters to about 45 coaches in the United States. Her coach at the Marion Gymnastics Club, Dana Brass, assisted in the process. (Few universities in Canada field gymnastics teams, and those that do don't offer scholarships.)

The most enticing response came from Bill Hopkins, then the coach at Southeast, but Hopkins offered Chenier only a partial scholarship. Chenier then told Hopkins she would have to look elsewhere without full financial assistance.

So Hopkins agreed to grant Chenier a full scholarship, and she signed a letter of intent to attend Southeast in October 1994, before she had even visited the Southeast campus. A few short months and stacks of paperwork later, she embarked on her freshman season.

"I was scared out of my mind," she says. "I was always competitive in Canada, but here my biggest fear was letting down the team. I didn't really set any goals because I just wanted to compete and get through it and not be a freshman anymore."

No longer a freshman, Chenier -- and the team along with her -- broke new ground during the next season, as records seemed to fall in every meet. The first milestone was passed on Jan. 7, 1997, when Chenier's all-around score of 39.275 eclipsed the team benchmark. Then on March 14 against Iowa, Chenier was awarded a 10 on floor and bested her all-around mark with a 39.525 as Southeast posted a record 196.025.

A new scoring system, which yielded lower scores around the country, was implemented before Chenier's junior season. So although Chenier was just as good if not better during that campaign, her success didn't generate more record-smashing scores.

And this season Chenier, who owns six of Southeast's top 10 all-round marks, contended with an ankle injury she suffered while at home during the winter break. The lingering ailment kept her out of the all-around for much of the season, but it didn't block her path to a fourth successive regional appearance.

Chenier, an elementary education major, will complete her student teaching duties during the fall semester. After teaching abroad, she says she likely will return to Canada and perhaps do some moonlighting as a gymnastics judge.

Asked about her most cherished gymnastics moment, Chenier exhibited none of the decisiveness she displayed as a youngster. There's simply too much to choose from.

"My teammates are probably my highlight," she says. "Well, my highlight is my whole college career. I'm so pleased with my career and I'm so happy with my accomplishments. I want to do it all over again."