What comes once only four years? No, not the presidential election. That’s right – the leap year, that peculiar, quadrennial, calendrical phenomenon when the shortest month of the year is a little less short. This year, there will be a February 29.
Unfortunately, the Earth does not make a perfect circle around the Sun exactly every 365 days. It’s not even a perfect 365.25. It actually takes 365.24 and some change. To adjust for this mathematical imperfection, we get an extra day every four years. Kinda’ like daylight savings, only there’s no ‘spring forward.’
According to “The Surprising History Behind Leap Year,” a 2016 article in National Geographic by Brian Handwerk, the leap year as we know it goes back to Julius Caesar. Then in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII updated the calendar to account for those extra decimal points. Now, years ending in ‘00’ like the year 1900, the leap year is skipped! Unless the year is also divisible by 400, like the year 2000, then the leap year occurs like normal. So no one alive today remembers a skipped leap year. The next one will be in 2100.
A quirky consequence of the leap year convention is that some folks happen to be born on this day, like motivational speaker Tony Robins (1960) for instance, or rapper Ja Rule (1976) or even Pope Paul III (1549). Their actual birthday only comes once every four years, giving some the eerie impression that they are four times younger.
But folks with a Feb. 29 birthdate are quite rare. If there is an equal chance of being born any day of the year, only 1 in 1,461 will be a ‘leaper.’ According to the U.S. Census, only about 187,000 people in the US have a Feb. 29 birthday.
With the help of The Leader’s readers, we managed to track down five of them from the area.

Kurt Farley
Born Feb. 29, 1968
Leap year age: 13
Actual age: 52
“It feels alright” to have a leap year birthday, Farley said. Obviously he still celebrates his birthday every year. Still, “it’s fun looking for those milestone birthdays.” He’s going to be a teenager again.
Some years he celebrates March 1, some years Feb. 28, depending on if one falls on a weekend, so there’s extra flexibility there.
When he was a kid, people would always tell him he only gets a birthday once every four years. He would shake his head, confused, thinking, ‘no I don’t, I get one every year!’ It wasn’t until he was in fifth grade, he looked at a calendar and finally realized Feb. 29 was missing.

Ben Blomme
Born Feb. 29, 2008
Leap year age: 3
Actual age: 12
On off years, his family just picks a day in February to celebrate. On leap years, he gets extra cake and they make sure to celebrate on the 29th, even if it is a Tuesday or Thursday weeknight. This year is the first year it will be on a weekend.
He enjoys the extra attention when people say things like, “oh my god, he’s turning three!”
He didn’t always like it though, his mother said. When he turned four, his older brother teased him for only being one year old, a baby.

Sandra Lockwood
Born Feb. 29, 1960
Leap year age: 15
Actual age: 60
Sandra was born at 11:57 p.m., so she almost wasn’t a leap year baby. On leap years, she always has a party sticking with the theme of the leap age she is turning. She’s Hispanic, so this year will be her quinceañera, a coming of age celebration for girls turning 15.
She’s also excited to be turning 60, the same as her birth year of 1960.
On off years she always celebrates on Feb. 28. “To me, March is a different month,” she said, so she sticks to her birth month of February.
“It feels fun” to have a leap year birthday. Oddly, a lot of people seem to remember her because of it.

Terry Waldo
Born Feb. 29, 1964
Leap year age: 14
Actual age: 56
“I’m still young at heart,” Terry said. “I act like I’m 14, I’ve always been that way.” His body tells him he’s older, but he still “feels, thinks and acts young.”
On off years, Terry double-dips and celebrates on both Feb. 28 and March 1. “I really don’t like the years I only get one day to celebrate,” he half-joked.
Kidding aside, there’s really nothing extra special about it. “I celebrate life every day,” he said. “Other people react more to it, but to me it’s just another day.”
Of course the same jokes tend to come up over and over. On off years people tease him that he shouldn’t be celebrating. But he doesn’t mind, it’s all in good fun and he takes it in stride.
The only real problems are glitches in computer systems or on forms, like at the Secretary of State, where Feb. 29 often doesn’t register and he must list Feb. 28 or March 1 as his birthday instead.
Terry grew up in Oxford. This is the third time he’s been featured in The Leader for his special birthdate. He previously appeared in the Feb. 24, 1972 issue for his ‘second’ birthday and again in Feb. 28, 1996 for his ‘eighth.’ Today he lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Denise Stannis
Born Feb. 29, 1952
Leap year age: 17
Actual age: 68
The Leader’s very own Denise Stannis, a secretary at Sherman Publications, was born on leap year too!
She says it is “fun and unique.” She enjoys taking advantage of special deals and discounts for leaplings at stores or restaurants.
She hated it when she turned four, because she thought she was only turning one. On off years she celebrated on both days, which made her brothers jealous. But her father would tease her by saying, ‘happy birthday tomorrow’ on Feb. 28 and then ‘happy birthday yesterday’ on March 1.
On off years, Facebook always says her birthday is March 1.
Through the years she stayed in touch with a girl who was born the same day in the same hospital, who she considers her oldest friend.