Florence, SC & the Pee Dee Region
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Dr. Eddie Floyd — heart surgeon, university trustee, farmer, and Pee Dee champion — died January 15, 2026, at the age of 91. This is his story, and ours.
Florence, S.C. — There are people who pass through a place, and there are people who become part of it. Dr. C. Edward "Eddie" Floyd was the second kind. Born in Lake City, trained in Charleston and New Orleans, he came back to South Carolina and chose Florence — and for the next half century, he gave this city and this region just about everything he had.
He died early on the morning of January 15, 2026. He was 91 years old.
Dr. C. Edward "Eddie" Floyd (1934–2026)
Dr. Floyd was born on May 22, 1934, in Lake City — tobacco country, about 35 miles up the road from Florence. His family farmed, and later his father opened a Chrysler dealership. They valued education deeply. College wasn't a question in the Floyd household; it was an expectation.
He enrolled at the University of South Carolina, swam on the team, and earned his business degree in 1956. From Columbia he went to Charleston for medical school, then west to New Orleans, where he completed his surgical residency at the LSU School of Medicine. Then he came home.
He landed in Florence and built a medical practice that made him one of the most respected vascular surgeons in the state. When Floyd started, vascular surgery was still a young field. He was doing advanced work at the frontier of cardiovascular medicine, in a mid-sized city in rural South Carolina, decades before that became common anywhere.
"In the Pee Dee region, his goal was to bring those medical students here. He worked tirelessly on that, but it was also his passion. He loved young people, he loved taking care of them, showing the direction. It is just such a legend that is being lost for this entire region."
Dr. Floyd's impact on healthcare in Florence and the Pee Dee went far beyond his own practice. He played a direct role in helping create the University of South Carolina's physician assistant program — working to bring medical training and medical students to a region that had long struggled to attract and keep healthcare professionals.
He was a longtime supporter of Francis Marion University, which is naming a new medical building on its campus in his honor. The Dr. Eddie Floyd Tennis Center in Florence also carries his name — a reflection of how broadly he invested in the community around him.
In 1982, Floyd joined the University of South Carolina Board of Trustees. He served for 42 years — longer than anyone in the institution's history. He was board chairman from 1992 to 1996, and remained one of its most influential voices for nearly three decades after that. He was a fourth-generation USC alumnus.
His philosophy never wavered. "Everybody deserves an opportunity to go to college," he told the university's alumni magazine in 1992. "If a person works hard, applies himself or herself and demonstrates ability, we should offer that individual the opportunity to go."
In 2024, at 89, Floyd stepped down from the board. His daughter, Dr. Coleman Floyd Buckhouse, was appointed to succeed him — a physician who had earned her biology degree from USC in 1981 and completed medical school at MUSC. The Floyd family's connection to USC now spans five generations and continues in the present.
Dr. C. Edward "Eddie" Floyd
Dr. Eddie Floyd was an unparalleled champion for the University of South Carolina. No Gamecock ever exhibited greater love for his alma mater. As an accomplished and widely respected surgeon, as well as a generous and ardent philanthropist, Dr. Floyd was an exceptional force for good in South Carolina, making an impact throughout his beloved Pee Dee region and the state.
Floyd was a surgeon and a farmer. A university trustee and an art collector. A public servant and, for decades, one of South Carolina's most prominent Republican fundraisers.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham remembered him as a close personal friend. "He was a die-hard, never-give-up Gamecock who poured his heart and soul into his beloved Florence and the region," Graham said.
His wife of 66 years, Kay Baker Floyd, who died in 2023, was a formidable force in her own right. A native of Timmonsville, Kay Floyd managed one of the largest farming operations in South Carolina, served as business manager for one of the state's first vascular laboratories, and was a founding member of Arts Alive at Francis Marion University. The Floyd Conference Center in Florence bears her name.
Governor Henry McMaster said the Floyds represented "the very best of South Carolina, with lives defined by service to others and a deep commitment to improving their community."
"My parents loved this university with all of their hearts. They believed deeply in improving lives and expanding opportunity."Dr. Coleman Floyd Buckhouse, USC Trustee and daughter of Dr. Eddie Floyd
On May 22, 2026 — what would have been Dr. Floyd's 92nd birthday — the University of South Carolina announced that its School of Medicine in Columbia would be renamed the University of South Carolina Kay and C. Edward Floyd, M.D. School of Medicine.
The Floyd family's combined philanthropic commitment totals $30 million, the largest gift tied to a medical school naming in USC's history. The funds will endow scholarships for medical students and faculty positions in surgery, neurosurgery, neurology, sports medicine, and the basic sciences.
Founded in 1977, the Floyd School of Medicine currently enrolls more than 750 students across six programs. A new 300,000-square-foot medical education and research facility is under construction at Columbia's BullStreet district as part of USC's growing Health Sciences Campus.
Now Named in Honor of
Kay & C. Edward Floyd, M.D.
$30M
Combined Gift
750+
Medical Students
5+
Generations of Floyds
300K
Sq Ft New Facility
At his core, Dr. Floyd was a Pee Dee man. He understood what this region needed — not charity, but investment. Not sympathy, but doctors who stayed, teachers who showed up, and leaders who planned in decades rather than election cycles.
That is what he gave. And because of the foundation he laid, generations of physicians trained at the school carrying his name will carry that work forward, in clinics and operating rooms and communities across South Carolina.
"His beneficial influence in the success of our students, in the mission of our university, in the fields of medicine and the arts, and in the betterment of life across our state will be felt for countless decades to come," USC President Michael Amiridis said. "He will be deeply missed."
In Florence, that needs no translation. Eddie Floyd walked these streets, worked in these hospitals, and gave everything he had to this place.
The measure of a life well lived is what a person leaves behind for others. By that measure, Dr. C. Edward Floyd lived about as well as anyone can.
Research for this tribute was drawn from the University of South Carolina's official remembrance (January 2026 and May 2026), WBTW News 13, The Post and Courier Education Lab, and ABC News 4.