Before the Game Fair, the Delaneys were well known in outdoors community

For generations of Minnesotans, Chuck and Loral I Delaney have been known only as owners and promoters of Game Fair, which is in its 35th run at the grounds of the Delaneys' Armstrong Ranch Kennels in Ramsey, in the northwest suburbs.

But the Delaneys' national and international outdoors credentials run deep and precede by decades their founding of Game Fair in 1982.

Growing up on what are now Game Fair grounds, Loral I Delaney learned to train dogs and shoot from her father, Fred Armstrong, who founded the kennel in 1926.

Fred held the first German shorthair field trial in North America at Armstrong Ranch Kennels and trained the first dual champion retriever Minnesota ever produced — a rare feat. "From the age of 3 I knew I wanted to be a dog trainer," Loral I said.

But not only a dog trainer. She won her first ladies state trapshooting championship in 1957 and began attending the Grand American trap shoot in 1964. Since then, she has earned 50 trophies at the Grand, capturing the women's High-Over-All title in 1966 with a record-tying 954x1000, and scored 946, 949, 931 and 937 to win the same title the next four years.

Chuck can shoot as well. Five times with Loral I he won the national husband-and-wife trapshooting championships, and both have been highly active in Minnesota shooting, continuing today as part owners of the Alexandria Shooting Park in Alexandria, Minn.

The two met when Loral I appeared with her dog act in a sport show that Chuck was promoting in Los Angeles, one of many shows Chuck produced throughout the nation.

Traveling with her dogs by vehicle coast-to-coast during the winter sport show season, Loral I thrilled crowds with her Chesapeake Bay and Labrador retrievers, directing them by hand and whistle signals to find retrieving dummies and other objects in large arenas.

Loral I also is an accomplished carver and displays her antler sculptures each year at Game Fair.

Both Chuck and Loral I are members of the Minnesota Trapshooting Hall of Fame, and Loral I has been enshrined in the American Trap Association Hall of Fame.

For the past 35 years, however, they've been known to many Minnesotans as owners and promoters of Game Fair, which continues Sunday and next Friday through Sunday.