WESTERN HORSEMAN: Charly Crawford Taps Whitney DeSalvo as His Rodeo Corpus Christi Dancing Partner
By: Kendra Santos
Ten-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo team roper Charly Crawford declared last December’s 2020 NFR his “Last Dance.” He’d burned up the rodeo road long enough and, with the impending expansion of his family, felt it was time to shift gears and priorities, which translated into team roping semiretirement. Crawford’s life has been a rodeo-slanted “Dancing With the Stars” sequel, starting with his cowgirl rock-star wife, Jackie, who just delivered a beautiful baby girl they named Journey in March. This week, two-time Girl Dad Charly is joining forces with the only #8-rated girl roper in the history of the sport, Whitney DeSalvo, to take on the all-star cowboy cast at the May 6-8 World Champions Rodeo Alliance’s $545,000 Rodeo Corpus Christi.
“Whitney had called a couple times and planted the seed about roping together at Corpus,” said Charly, who makes his home in Stephenville, Texas (which is a five-and-a-half-hour drive to Corpus), with Jackie; daughter Kaydence, 16; son Creed, 4; and baby Journey. “I’ve been roping with Douglas Rich and Billie Jack Saebens at the few places I’ve been in early 2021, but roping with them at Corpus wasn’t in the cards. So I called Whitney back and said, ‘Are you ready to win that mother?’ It was straight-up celebration on the other end of the line, and she said, ‘Hell yes.’ I knew right then this was going to be fun.”
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