‘Supporting the community’
Heber Springs vet named chamber board president
Dr. Ryan Sartin found his calling at an early age. When he was about 7 or 8 years old, his family had taken one of their dogs to the veterinarian for heartworm treatment. “One of the vets took me in back and showed me the heartworms on the microscope,” Sartin recalled, and he knew that when he grew up, he wanted to be a vet, too.
“I started working for our local veterinarian in the kennels when I was 16 and worked my way up. Then after college, I went to veterinary school.” he said.
Today, he has his own thriving practice in Heber Springs, where he joined the Heber Springs Area Chamber of Commerce and has recently been named the chamber board president for 2020.
Sartin grew up in Madison, Mississippi, a small town in central Mississippi that has a current population of 24,841, about three times the size of Heber Springs.
After high school, he attended Mississippi State University and earned an undergraduate degree in animal and dairy science. Then in 2008, he earned a doctorate of veterinary medicine.
He worked in two veterinary clinics in the Madison/ Jackson, Mississippi, areas and was actually working at a clinic in Memphis and managing a clinic there when he decided it was time to purchase a clinic of his own.
“I loved growing up in a small town,” he said, so he was looking for something in a small town to buy.
When he came across an established practice in
Heber Springs for sale, Sartin had never even heard of Heber Springs, but “it was a good practice,” he said.
Surprisingly enough, he would retain some of his same patients from his former practice.
“Some of the clients I have here were my clients in Memphis. They either had summer homes here [in Heber Springs] or retired here. Some would walk in, and they’d be surprised, or they heard I was here, and they’d come in, and I’d be surprised,” Sartin said with a chuckle.
In 2013, his practice, Sartin Animal Care Clinic, joined the Heber Springs Chamber of Commerce.
“I joined the chamber mainly because I wanted to be a bigger part of the community,” he said, explaining that when he was in college, he knew he “wanted to be the veterinarian that the community went to. … I do want to be one who’s supporting the community as best I can. We truly feel our clients are family. Our community is what supports us, so if we don’t support it, they won’t support us.”
Sartin is also a member of the Rotary Club of Heber Springs, and the family attends First United Methodist Church in Heber Springs, where he helps with the special-needs classroom. He also served as a Boy Scout den leader for two years.
Sartin was named to the chamber board in 2017.
“I wasn’t looking to become president by any means. I just kind of fell into that role, but there are definitely a lot of things [the chamber] can do to help the community.”
For instance, the chamber puts a lot of focus on tourism, he said. “We do have several events that we try to make bigger and better every year. They fill our
For most people, their pet is like their kid. It’s just an extension of their family. Every decision we make is an emotional one.” Ryan Sartin HEBER SPRINGS CHAMBER BOARD PRESIDENT FOR 2020.
hotels, fill our restaurants and shopping areas.”
He also said the chamber offers seminars and brings in instructors on various topics, and it provides marketing and social media to help its members grow their businesses.
Sartin, who said he always liked fireworks when he was a kid, served on the chamber’s Fourth of July Fireworks Committee last year.
“I jumped at the chance to be on that committee,” he said. “This is our biggest event and something I can foresee us making bigger and better. … I was part of the committee to bring back the cardboard boat races, and now we want to build it up to what it used to be. We want ESPN to come back, the TV news stations. We really want the Heber Springs businesses to build boats and compete against each other. We’re even thinking about making it a circuit event — there are other cardboard boat races in Arkansas, but we’re the only world-championship event.”
“We’re going to hit the ground running.”
With a busy practice at work, Sartin also has a busy home life, with nine dogs, one cat and three horses.
“Our cat is a barn cat we got from a client who was moving and needed a home for him,” he said. When the client couldn’t find a home for the cat, Sartin offered to take it.
“We have three dogs that live outside. They don’t get along with the other dogs, so there’s no way for them to all live inside. They’re all big dogs, and the inside dogs are smaller.”
Sartin met his wife, Lindsey, during his junior year of high school. She was a sophomore, and both were in band, but it was a large school, and he said there were about 200 to 300 members in their school band.
They didn’t meet until the band went to perform in a parade at Disney World, and they got to talking on the bus on the way to Florida.
“He was such a caring gentleman but also fun and smart,” Lindsey said, adding that he “still is all of those things. He has the most handsome smile.”
She played the clarinet, and he played the trumpet, and the two began dating the following year and continued dating the next four years.
Sartin was in the early-entry program at the Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine and was required to maintain a certain grade-point average in order to finish his schooling in seven years instead of the usual eight, Lindsey said. This allowed him to complete all the undergraduate requirements in just three years and advance to vet school sooner.
The couple married right before Sartin entered vet school, and the following year, their son Jacob was born, two months premature. Lindsey said she’d had a hard pregnancy, but Sartin was there for her.
“He managed to care for me and our new baby while continuing school,” she said.
“It was hard juggling all that and family,” Sartin added. “It was a lot to deal with, but we made it work as a family.”
Four years later, son Dylon arrived, bringing the count of animal lovers in the household to four.
“He is a godly man who seeks Jesus daily and is a wonderful example to our two sons,” Lindsey said of her husband. “It isn’t uncommon for him to stop in the parking lot to help an elderly person with their groceries or pull off on the side of the road to help a stranger.”
The family does mixed martial arts known as youn wha ryu, which Sartin said combines tae kwon do, jujitsu, judo and other martial arts.
“We’ve been doing that for about a year and a half,” he said. “The whole family does it.”
He said the boys started going, and about two months later, to his surprise, Sartin said his wife wanted to go as well.
“I did some form of martial arts when I was kid, so it was kind of picking back up where I’d left off,” he said. “I wasn’t going to do it. I was just going to take the boys, but she wanted to do it, and she got me back into it.”
Besides the exercise, which Sartin said is a great benefit, considering “most of my job is standing and bending down,” the practice also teaches self-discipline.
“It’s not about fighting; it’s about disciplining yourself and self-defense. We do that twice a week. That’s really the only family time we get where there’s no interruptions. You can’t have your phone on you when you’re kicking and punching.”
He also helps with Grandmaster Han’s Martial Arts Academy of Heber Springs after-school academy, where he teaches a skills program to elementary students who are learning the basics of martial arts.
And he has spoken to elementary and high school classes alike about being a veterinarian and has offered his clinic for a Girl Scout troop tour.
He said he is occasionally approached by someone who wants to be a veterinarian and asks to watch a surgery.
“There was one that got sick, and I told him whatever he did, do not throw up on my surgery. He threw up in a trash can and got back up and watched the rest of it,” Sartin said with a chuckle.
Sartin is also a member of the Heber Springs Humane Society and said he works closely with the group in most of their pet-care and community-outreach projects.
The Sartins’ youngest “family member” is a miniature Australian shepherd named Darby who came to live with them because he has hydrocephalus.
“Ryan has been working with the little guy to help him have a happy life,” Lindsey said.
“For most people, their pet is like their kid. It’s just an extension of their family,” Sartin said. “Every decision we make is an emotional one. Some are really easy, and some are hard. I get the question all the time, ‘If it was your pet, what would you do?’ I’ve got to know their feelings and come up with the best answer for everyone involved.”
He noted, “It’s an emotional roller coaster every day.”