D r. Lash Springs was just 2 years old when his paternal grandfather, a legend in the Myrtle Beach medical community, suffered a debilitating stroke.
Dr. Holmes Buck “Booby” Springs Jr. died in 2005 at age 83, but he left a legacy of service that lived through the memories people shared.
The younger Springs grew up hearing stories about the various ways in which his grandfather, a Myrtle Beach High School graduate who went on to become the area’s first surgeon, helped his patients and the community.
“My father would tell stories about my grandfather helping those who couldn’t afford it,” Dr. Springs says. “He would provide care or services and barter whatever their trade was. Dad would come home and there would be beans sitting on the porch, which he dreaded because he knew he’d be shucking beans all afternoon.”
Lash Springs’ boyhood admiration of his grandfather led to his pursuit of the older man’s profession.
“I strive to emulate the things I’ve heard about him, to provide the type of service that leaves all of these memories, even years after it was done,” Dr. Springs says. “I would hear so many stories about him and how people looked up to him for all he did for families and the community.”

Booby Springs had deep roots in the area. His father, Dr. Springs’ great-grandfather, helped break ground on Myrtle Beach City Hall in the 1920s.
Booby played football on Myrtle Beach High School’s first team and, after graduating in 1939, attended The Citadel, Duke University and MUSC.
He moved back to Myrtle Beach when the former Ocean View Memorial Hospital opened in 1958, and he practiced surgery until retiring in 1988.
When Booby Springs wasn’t helping people in the hospital, he was helping them outside of it. He and another doctor started SOS Health Care, a not-for-profit organization that serves people with autism, in Myrtle Beach.
Active in the community, Booby served on Myrtle Beach City Council for 10 years and was mayor pro-tem during one of his terms. He was president of the local chapter of Operation Alert during the Cold War.
A horticultural park near Myrtle Beach is named in his memory, and his fishing friends dedicated a reef to him three miles offshore of Murrells Inlet.
Like his grandfather, Dr. Lash Springs is an avid sportsman and fisherman.
The grandson is now a family medicine physician at Tidelands Health Family Medicine at Holmestown Road. Displayed in his office are his grandfather’s medical license certificate, medical school graduation program and an old coffee mug from his grandfather’s desk.

They are reminders of a man beloved by the community and the choices he made to improve families and the community.
“I just try and serve the patients in whatever way I can and not try to worry so much about all of the other things,” Dr. Springs says. “I try to treat every patient as if they were family. What would I do with this if this person were family? When you care for the ones you love the most, you’re willing to tell them the truth and do what’s best for them.”
Sometimes, being willing to say no or to take a hard line on something might not be popular, but “I want every action I take to be to the betterment of somebody,” he says.
Dr. Springs’ biggest sense of gratification comes from seeing people overcome illness or gain control over an issue with which they were struggling, he says.
“I consider myself a guide, and I like to guide people through their health,” he says.

At home, the married father of two young daughters is a novice brewer of non-alcoholic root beer and is working to perfect his recipe.
“I have a lot of friends who enjoy brewing alcoholic beer, and I like beer but was never interested in brewing it,” he says.
He got the idea to brew root beer from a magazine article about a restaurant that brews its own.
The first batch was so sweet it gave him a headache, so he went back to the drawing board.
“Being a doctor, I guess I shouldn’t support something with so many grams of sugar in it,” he jokes.