Friday, February 29, 2008
Sarah O’Neill celebrates her fifth birthday today, and O’Neill is a sophomore in college.
No, the Lenexa native isn’t the world’s youngest college student.
She’s a leap-year baby.
Like thousands of other people, O’Neill has the misfortune of being born on Feb. 29 – a day that comes around once every four years.
Sarah O'Neill, Lenexa sophomore, celebrates her fifth birthday today. O'Neil is 20 years old, but her actually birthdate is on Feb. 29.
“I think it’s more entertaining for everyone else than it is for me,” O’Neill said.
On O’Neill’s 16th birthday – or fourth if you’re talking literally – her parents threw a surprise party. Among the gifts were a baby rattle and Barbie dolls.
“I think my parents felt bad for me,” O’Neill said.
“I’m making her blow out a cake with five candles.” O’Neill’s Chi Omega sorority sister, Allie Hasting, Littlteton, Colo., sophomore, said.
O’Neill isn’t alone.
According to the Honor Society of Leap Year Babies, an organization started in 1997 by Peter Brouwer and Raenell Dawn, both leap-year babies, to promote leap-year baby awareness, the United States is home to approximately 200,000 leap year babies — or leapers.
Brouwer and Dawn maintain a Web site full of leap year facts and information on leap year babies.
Brouwer said the real goal of the Web site, www.leapyearday.com, was to put an emphasis on leapers.
“We sort of blow it out of proportion,” Brouwer said. “They usually don’t a get a day to celebrate. We make them feel special.”
Brouwer’s organization also addresses the problems leapers face. Brouwer said most software didn’t recognize that Feb. 29 was an actual day, and many law enforcement agencies were oblivious to the day as well.
“We get stories every year about people who have had problems with police officers, because the officers think they are lying about their birthday.”
And while being a leap year baby may be a pain, having leap years in our calendar is a necessity, said Barbara Anthony-Twarog, KU professor of physics and astronomy.
“We’d be finding ourselves a little further and further behind, with respect to the seasons,” Anthony-Twarog said.
The reason is simple. It takes approximately 365.25 days for the Earth to revolve around the sun. Thus, every four years, one extra day must be added to balance the calendar.
“That mismatch was noticed thousands of years ago,” Anthony-Twarog said.
But Anthony-Twarog said leap year math was a little more complicated than most people realize.
The earth actually takes slightly less than 365.25 days to revolve around the sun. To correct this problem, years that are divisible by 100 are not leap years – unless they are also divisible by 400.
Science aside, O’Neill said having a leap year birthday was a nuisance.
“All the way through elementary school, I hated it,” O’Neill said. “Everyone wants to have their birthday,” O’Neill said. “It only comes around once a year, and I could never say, ‘it’s my birthday.’”
O’Neill said she was eight years old when she realized she had a rare birthday.
Everytime she had a birthday party or brought birthday cookies to elementary school, O’Neill had to explain that it wasn’t her real birthday.
Then comes the most daunting question for leap-year babies.
What day do you celebrate?
O’Neill said she would do most of celebrating on the 28th, but she always opened one present on March 1.
“That’d be my birthday, actually, if I had one.”
—Edited by Jared Duncan
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Leap-year babies jump at the chance to celebrate
From the picture caption: "Sarah O'Neill, Lenexa sophomore, celebrates her fifth birthday today. O'Neil is 20 years old, but her actually birthdate is on Feb. 31."
Seriously?!? The UDK staff thinks that Leap Day is February 31??
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