By: Sheila Crowley
Murray County News Staffwriter
Little did Chuck Skalak know as a child he would eventually wind up in a small southwestern Minnesota community. Skalak grew up in Chicago, Illinois and at the time was a typical young man who loved baseball and basketball. His life changed when at 15 years of age he lost his father.
“At that time there were few government programs to help single mothers so she worked a lot to support us,” explained Skalak.
A couple of years later, Skalak decided to leave Chicago and headed to Wisconsin where he worked on a ranch. It was here, Skalak first discovered hunting. “There were a lot of deer there so I decided to try my hand with a gun and liked it,” shared Skalak. When he wasn’t working Skalak turned to hunting deer in the fall and fox in the winter. “I just enjoyed sitting out in the woods by myself,” he explained.
As time passed on Skalak met his future wife Trudy. They were married in 1972 and moved to Sanborn, Minnesota where Trudy’s parent’s lived in ‘73. The move allowed Chuck to continue his hunting endeavors. Often times, the fall consisted of deer hunting as a family which meant wife, Trudy, and their son, Cory, joined the group. However, in all that time Trudy never had the opportunity to pull the trigger on her shotgun.
He purchased his first bow at the age of 25. At the time basically his bow was used to shoot targets. Their son, Cory, began working at Double Bull Archery and this sparked Chuck’s bow interest to expand to live shooting scenarios. Trudy decided to give it a try and on her first shot, clipped a gopher at 20 yards according to Chuck. “That was pretty impressive.” A week later Trudy went along on a bear hunt and shot her first bear on the very first time she pulled the trigger and the week after that, Trudy shot her first deer…only it wasn’t with a slug, but rather her bow. “The bow is her thing,” giggled Chuck.
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