Rusty Rawson was good at asking for trouble. He wasn’t good at asking for help. That started to change one night in a desert wash on the outskirts of Las Vegas.
He was out of work, hooked on meth, and surviving by the reflexes of a gang life he thought he’d left behind.
He slept in a makeshift fort of rods and tarp. He boiled water for hygiene over an open flame and washed his clothes in a splash pad at the public park.
To sustain his addiction, he beat up pedestrians and robbed them for cash.
Through it all, he had a partner in crime: his 11-year-old son, Sterling.
Rusty knew if they were caught by police the state would take his son. It was the outcome he feared most, and it began to feel inevitable. Then one night a thought dropped into his head.
“I’m sitting there getting high in our little hut we built in the desert, and out of nowhere I heard something tell me, 'Ask your son what to do. He’s got the answer,'” Rusty said.
‘Go Back To Casper'
It wasn’t in his nature to take direction, but the thought wouldn’t go away.
Finally, he turned to his son and said, “What do I need to do for you?”
Sterling said the question caught him off guard, but the answer came to him instantly.
"I turned to him with as calm a voice as I had, and said, ‘Dad, everything will be OK if we go back to Casper,’" Sterling said.
Three days later, they were on a bus to Wyoming, where Sterling was raised.
Now, nearly two years after their return, father and son find themselves within sight of a future that once felt out of reach.
Their turnaround, rooted in the Wyoming Rescue Mission, stands out not just for how far they’ve come, but for the role each played in helping the other get there.
At a time when homelessness has reached record levels nationwide, and growing numbers of children experience housing instability, their story offers a rare perspective about what happens when a child becomes the steadying force in a parent's life.
“The only thing that kept me sane at that time was my son,” said Rusty. “He kept me calm. He was my peace.”
Not The One To ‘Test’
Rusty Rawson has a barrel chest and a bald head.
He grows a mustache to hide his missing teeth, half of which he lost in a blow from a baseball bat. The rest fell out from decay because of meth use, a habit he picked up at the age of 12.
He fidgets with tissue to mitigate his ADHD and bounces his leg when anxious; it bounces a lot when he talks of his past.
He grew up in a trailer home in North Las Vegas. He ran with rough crowds, but he also showed promise as an athlete.
As a freshman at Western High School, he placed second in state as a wrestler. He placed second again his sophomore year, and then took fifth place in high school wrestling nationals.
All the while his support system at home weakened due to his parents’ failing health.
His father, a Teamsters Union truck driver, was sidelined by a severe bowel condition and repeated surgeries. His mother’s life was upended by a sexual assault and later a brain tumor that led to surgically induced epilepsy.
“I had to fend for myself,” Rusty said. “I started selling drugs, and school was the best place to do that.”
He was caught with marijuana at high school his sophomore year, and administrators responded by barring him from extra-curricular activities, like wrestling.
That’s when he dropped out.
He was one of the few white kids in a predominantly black neighborhood, and he said that made him a target for rigorous “testing,” street speak for measuring whether he’d fold in the face of intimidation, or if he’d fight back.
“I was a white kid in a black neighborhood, so we would get tested a lot more to see if we had the heart, to see if we were down, to see if we could scrap,” he said.
“I always — always — let them know that I wasn’t the one to test.”
Life Closing In
He earned respect, but rising in the gang life only put a bigger target on his back.
His first close call with violence happened in junior high, right in front of his school locker, when a classmate rushed from behind and stabbed him with a knife in the back, narrowly missing Rusty’s spine.
The violence ramped up from there, finding him on street corners, and even at home, endangering not only himself, but his family.
One evening he was standing in the front room when semiautomatic gunfire ripped through his family’s trailer.
Rusty was struck in the leg. His uncle, watching television, took a bullet in the arm. His mother ducked below the kitchen counter as shards of a broken coffee pot rained down on her head.
"That’s when they kicked me out,” said Rusty, who was 15 years old at the time. “They didn't like their house getting shot up."
Even as he drifted in and out of trouble through his teens, Rusty yearned to build an honest life.
By 20, he’d begun work as a truck driver. A few years later, he took a gig with a pipeline company in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
In Rock Springs, he met a woman and had a son — Sterling.
‘It Was Just Surviving’
Sterling Rawson has a long mop of curly hair, reminiscent of a younger Weird Al Yankovic, a stark contrast to his father’s hairless head.
But they have far more in common than not, beginning with an unwavering loyalty to one another.
Sterling’s first 10 years were relatively stable. He lived with both parents for a while and had good friends at Cottonwood Elementary.
When his parents separated, Rusty became Sterling’s primary, and then sole, caregiver.
They lived together at the Aspen Trailer Court in Casper until 2023, when a redevelopment project forced them out. That’s when Rusty decided to move back to Vegas to take a job driving dirt trucks.
Once there, it didn’t take long for his old habits to find him again.
“I was clean for four and a half years. But the people that I knew from before, I ran into instantly,” Rusty said. “About 24 hours after being back in Vegas, I started getting high.”
Within a year, meth use caused Rusty to lose his job as well as their rental home. Sterling didn't finish sixth grade. Instead, he got an education on how to survive on the street.
Sterling described homeless life as a grinding, joyless routine.
Every night they set up a shelter. Every morning, they took it down. They dove dumpsters for food, collected empty cans and bottles to redeem for cash.
On some occasions, they walked as many as 20 miles in a day. They cooled off in the fountains at the city park.
‘Death, Rape, Murder'
Sterling talks about this life in a calm, even tone, as if it were merely an unglamorous summer job.
“There wasn’t anything really fun about it,” said Sterling. “It was just surviving.”
His father spoke of it more cynically.
“Death, rape, murder,” said Rusty, listing the dangers prevalent in the encampment. “And I’m out there with my son, trying to protect him while being homeless.”
His father carried the fear for both of them.
“I knew my dad would protect me. I know that I was safe with him. I know what he can do. I wasn’t scared.” Sterling said, offering an example of how his father had fought off thieves in the wash.
Although, there was an exception.
“The only time I felt scared was when my dad was getting high; anytime my dad was on drugs,” he said.
As Rusty fell into a state despair, Sterling kept his cool, which is why his father eventually followed the silent prompt he felt that night in the wash.
Sterling didn’t see the responsibility coming, but he was ready for it.
“When he turned and looked at me and asked me with a kind of a shaky voice (what to do), I just knew that going back to Casper was the only right choice,” Sterling said.
“It was the best decision we made so far,” he added.
Rusty Rawson and his son Sterling, now 14, were living homeless lives surrounded by violence, drugs and gangs in Las Vegas when Rusty made the best decision he could have as a parent — he askeds his young son what to do. "Dad, everything will be OK if we go back to Casper,” was the answer. 
Rusty Rawson and his son Sterling, now 14, were living homeless lives surrounded by violence, drugs and gangs in Las Vegas when Rusty made the best decision he could have as a parent — he askeds his young son what to do. "Dad, everything will be OK if we go back to Casper,” was the answer. 
Rusty Rawson talks about how he and his 14-year-old son Sterling are saving each other, and have changed their lives over the past 18 months at the Casper Rescue Mission. 
Rusty Rawson and his son Sterling, now 14, were living homeless lives surrounded by violence, drugs and gangs in Las Vegas when Rusty made the best decision he could have as a parent — he askeds his young son what to do. "Dad, everything will be OK if we go back to Casper,” was the answer. Rusty Rawson talks about how he and his 14-year-old son Sterling are saving each other, and have changed their lives over the past 18 months at the Casper Rescue Mission. 
Sterling Rawson has taken a special interest in the subjects of culinary arts and mathematics, and despite missing two years of school, this week he graduated his freshman year from Kelly Walsh High School with a 3.8 GPA.
Back To Casper
For a week, they lived out of an SUV parked in the back of a Pilot truck stop in Casper. Then the truck stop clerk told them where they could get a free plate of hot food: Wyoming Rescue Mission.
They got more than a hot meal.
For the last 18 months, Rusty and Sterling have been staying in beds at the Mission, where Rusty has joined its Discipleship Program, a Bible-based recovery program he said has helped him come to terms with his struggle.
When he talked about that day’s program lesson on the letters of Paul, his eyes lit up. His leg stopped bouncing, too.
“I think there was something divine talking to me in the desert that day, telling me to look towards my son for the answer,” he said. “God, Jesus, the Holy Trinity, however you want to look at it, but that's what it is to me.”
It’s also given his son the stability needed to go back to school.
If Sterling comes across like a world-wise adult when discussing life on the street, he sounds more his age, now 14, when the topic turns to favorite subjects in school.
He grins while showing off an assignment from wood shop, a “tire thumper” used by truck drivers to get a quick read of air pressure. He made it for his dad.
Yet living on the street forced Sterling to grow up quickly, and he sometimes feels disconnected from a cohort of classmates his age whose drama strikes him as trivial.
“They all were immature compared to what I've been through. They all acted so immature that it was hard to be friends with them," he said, explaining that he now gravitates toward older company. “Most of my new friends I have are either seniors, juniors, or sophomores.”
He’s taken a special interest in the subjects of culinary arts and mathematics, and despite missing two years of school, this week he finished his freshman year from Kelly Walsh High School with a 3.8 GPA.
This summer he’s going to wrestling camp. Next year he plans to join the JROTC.
When they first arrived in Wyoming, the father and son were sharing two pairs of shorts and three T-shirts between them. They now have independent wardrobes.
Last week, Sterling’s friend gave him his first pair of Air Jordans. Next week, Rusty will start the process of having new teeth implanted with help from the Mission.
What hasn’t changed is the thing that got them through.
“We’re best friends. We always have been,” said Rusty, turning to his son. “I love you, bro.”
“I love you, too,” said Sterling.
Editor’s Note: Interviews with Sterling and Rusty were conducted independently, as well as together.
Zakary Sonntag can be reached at zakary@cowboystatedaily.com.
