Rashun Richardson seemed to have a lot going for him, given what he’d overcome. The 17-year-old fled from Hurricane Harvey by himself, and ended up enrolling in Hillcrest High School in Dallas. There, he found a girlfriend, and made a name for himself on the basketball floor. He was even named his district’s Offensive Player of the Year.
But there was a problem. Rashun Richardson doesn’t actually exist.
That was just a name assumed by Sidney Bouvier Gilstrap-Portley, a 25-year-old man from Dallas who enrolled in Hillcrest under a hardship exemption. Gilstrap-Portley’s true identity was revealed earlier this week. It’s a story that’s been on Dallas Morning News Columnist Robert Wilonsky’s radar not just as a reporter, but as a parent.
Wilonsky’s son Harry, is also a student at Hillcrest, and knew Gilstrap-Portley under his assumed identity. He knew the man’s 14-year-old girlfriend better.
“He was, to put it mildly, freaked out,” Wilonksy says about his son.
And the younger Wilonsky wasn’t the only member of the family to experience that feeling.
Written by Shelly Brisbin.
