Opryland Calling

Lukas Flippo is a first-generation, low-income senior at Yale University from rural Mississippi. His work reflects back on his home in the South, investigating both place and people. Where they have been, where they are now, where they are headed. And the ways that direction, whether it be death by flight to the city or the revival of the quiet blink-of-an-eye downtown a stone’s throw from the Friday night heroes running to the cadence of cheerleaders who picked up their first pom-poms and uniforms from their mother, manifest themselves in the people who see that lone stoplight as home or a blinking reminder of what their home once was.

Lukas has been a rural communities intern at the Mississippi Free Press, a Pulliam Fellow at the IndyStar, and a multimedia journalist at the Sun Herald. His work has been seen in national publications such as the NYT, WaPo, and TIME, as well as a host of regional publications.