What's it like to have a leap year birthday? Hear from 9 South Dakotans who celebrate Feb. 29

Feb. 27—MITCHELL — Celebrating a birthday is a yearly tradition, but not quite for everyone.

For people born on Feb. 29 — the extra day added to the calendar on leap years to account for the extra quarter-day it takes for earth to circle the sun each year — actual birthdays are something special to be observed every four years.

Having a Feb. 29 birthday is sometimes cause for both amusement and confusion. It can be the source of jokes about how having been born on the date makes one only a quarter as old as their actual age — someone born Feb. 29, 1984, will in 20024 be 40 years old in age but are only celebrating their 10th birthday. Depending on the website, entering a Feb. 29 birthday is not always an option, and laws usually default to March 1 as the official birthday of "leaplings," forcing them to wait until March 1 to enjoy their first legal drink.

Feb. 29 birthdays are fairly rare. According to Avera Queen of Peace hospital, since 2016 there has been one baby born on Feb. 29 at the hospital, while there have been nine born on Feb. 28 and 16 born on March 1 in that same time span.

For the most part, having a Feb. 29 birthday is a unique and fun anomaly that, if nothing else, is a great conversation piece among family and friends when those once-every-four-years birthdays come around.

The Mitchell Republic reached out to readers to find people who were born on Feb. 29, asking them to share stories of their unique birthday and how they celebrate. Here are a few interesting stories from leaplings.

Jonah Beck, of Huron, wasn't supposed to have been born on Feb. 29. His mother, Laura, was scheduled for a C-section delivery on Feb. 26, 2008, but her doctor came down with influenza and couldn't perform the procedure until three days later. It was then her son was born.

"We always told him that he had a different birthday but he didn't really understand the concept of Leap Day. He used to ask me, 'What day is my birthday this year?'" Laura told the Mitchell Republic. "I always thought it was funny when people would ask him when his birthday was, and he'd say Feb. 28 or 29. To me it made sense to keep it in the same month since it was already confusing for him."

For the most part, and like many people with Feb. 29 birthdays, Jonah often defaults to celebrating his birthday on Feb. 28. Choosing that day keeps the birthday in February, reducing at least some of the confusion.

His parents had to explain the oddity of his birthday to him, and he had to explain it to his friends and classmates.

"It was the year I was in kindergarten when I had to start explaining it to people, but I didn't know a lot about it myself," Jonah said. "People find it weird, and I like to brag about it, so I guess I have it coming."

Though he will officially turn 16 this year, it will only be his fourth birthday. That is a technicality often experienced by leaplings, and jokes about him being only "four years old" are often part of the experience. Despite the odd birthday, however, Jonah still gets to celebrate those important milestones growing up.

Jonah said he doesn't celebrate much differently on leap years, when his actual Feb. 29 birthday comes along officially.

"We teased him about having to wait until he was 64 to get his driver's license, but he proved that wrong!" Laura said. "We always make jokes about him being very advanced for a 'three year old,' and other references to 'leap age.' He still has to pay full price at the buffet."

Like Jonah Beck, Rylee Heinrich wasn't supposed to be born on Feb. 29. She was born two weeks early in 2012, and her mother Jessica had to be transported from Chamberlain to Mitchell in a snowstorm for the delivery.

For Rylee, who will be 12 years old but celebrating only her third official birthday, being born on an unusual day is an old story that she has explained several times.

"I never really realized my birthday was different, I just got used to it and thought of it as my normal," Rylee said. "It's just what makes me unique."

Like others, she tends to celebrate her birthday on Feb. 28. But when leap years roll around, she does get to enjoy a special celebration, even if they don't occur that often. With it being leap year this year, there may be a special birthday celebration in store, including taking in a streaming Taylor Swift concert.

"It's hard to say since I have only had two, but when I turned eight — or '2' in leap years — was probably my favorite. We did a lot of fun things," Rylee said.

When it isn't a leap year, Rylee's birthday can shift depending on what day it falls. And sometimes the family just celebrates off and on during the week.

And while having a Feb. 29 birthday is usually unique to a family, Rylee has more than one family member that shares a birthday with her. Both her uncle, Andy Feldermann, and her mother's cousin, Chelsy Salyer, are also leaplings and will observe their eighth and ninth birthdays in 2024, respectively.

"We call it birthday week," Jessica said. "It's exhausting."

Tarkenton Kingsbury, of Letcher, was born in 1992 and wasn't that keen at first on being a leapling.

"When I was 4 my parents told me I was one and I kind of threw a fit," Tarkenton said. "I didn't really appreciate it until getting up into my teen years and heard the running joke that I was turning 4."

Tarkenton, a physical therapist, grew to appreciate his birthday as he got older, even if online entities and government offices could give him a headache trying to accommodate him and his Feb. 29 birthday. He generally celebrates his birthday on Feb. 28, but it can be tricky getting some groups to do the same.

He had to wait until March 1 to go out for drinks when he turned 21, for example.

"My social media stuff and other places when it's not leap year, they can get a little confused. I'll get birthday notifications on Feb. 28 and March 1," Tarkenton said. "The only issue I ever had was when I turned 21 and had to get a new identification. On that one you have to wait. The government made me wait until March 1, but it was just a one-time thing."

He sometimes treats actual Feb. 29 birthdays a little differently, and his last one in 2020 was particularly unique. It occurred right as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to shut down the country and the world at large.

That isn't likely to occur this year, but he isn't planning on doing anything particularly special for his birthday in 2024. Though he doesn't share a birthday with any family members, he does have a brother with a birthday on Feb. 11, so there may be a get-together with family in the works.

"I probably won't do much, but that weekend or the weekend before I might go out. I have another brother whose birthday is Feb. 11, so my parents were trying to talk me into going out to Sioux Falls and celebrate both, so I might do something like that," Tarkenton said.

Marianne Lindley Girten, of Chamberlain, was born in 1956, which makes her age 68 even though she will be celebrating only her 17th birthday.

For Girten, she really didn't think that much about her Feb. 29 birthday until she got older. When she was in her 30s, she began getting birthday greetings notifications from people she hadn't spoken to or thought of in a long time.

"I was living 3,000 miles away in Alaska, and got phone calls from people I hadn't talked to in years," Girten said. "That's when I realized people hadn't forgotten me."

Girten never locked in on a specific date to celebrate. She has celebrated her birthday on Feb. 28 and March 1. One year, she even decided to celebrate on Feb. 14 — Valentine's Day.

"It depended on what Friday night was," Girten laughed. "My mom let me have whatever day I wanted."

Like other leaplings, she has run into the hassles of signing up for websites and other activities that require submitting a birth date. It was irritating in her earlier years, but as time has gone on she has learned to embrace the confusion that comes with celebrating a birthday once every four years.

"Computers in the early days didn't have a Feb. 29 option, you couldn't plug that in on an application," Girten said.

Girten said she didn't have anything particular in mind for this year's celebration, and at her age she said she's marking the years by a different method.

"I've reached the age where I'm getting ready for a colonoscopy next year," Girten laughed. "Happy birthday!"

Most leaplings don't share a birthday with other family members. In fact, many don't even personally know anybody else with a Feb. 29 birthday. That's not the case with Jace and Jevyn Sifore. The two, originally from Howard, are twin brothers who were both born on Feb. 29.

Being twin brothers is unique in itself, but both having been born on Feb. 29, in their case in 2004, adds a special connotation to their birthdays. It was something they both had to adjust to growing up.

"For the most part, you don't realize it until grade school," Jace told the Mitchell Republic.

Jevyn began to take notice of their birthday when he got a little older.

"Around middle school is when I realized I had a special birthday. I remember it used to confuse me when our birthday would change and not seeing Feb. 29 on the calendar," Jevyn said.

Having only celebrated a handful of Feb. 29 birthdays, the brothers take a good amount of ribbing for being highly-developed for four-year-olds.

"People always have the joke about us being big for four-year-olds," Jace said.

Jevyn also said he's heard comments like that over the years.

"Always," Jevyn said. We hear a lot of 'You are really tall for a four-year-old.'"

Both brothers say they tend to celebrate their birthday on Feb. 28, as it makes sense to them to keep their celebration in the month they were technically born in. When it comes to leap years, they usually acknowledge their true age and their leap year age on the cake. This year's cake will sport a "5" to represent their fifth birthday, despite both turning 20 years old in actual age.

Even though they have a chance to mark their birthday on Feb. 29 this year, any group observation will likely be on March 2 to accommodate the busy college students' schedule. Jace attends and plays football for South Dakota State University and Jevyn is a student at the University of South Dakota, something that adds an extra level of brotherly rivalry between the two.

But they are first and foremost brothers, despite one being a Jackrabbit and one being a Coyote.

"I enjoy that I share it with someone who's been my best friend my whole life. Jevyn's like a built-in best friend, so it's always fun to share a special birthday with him," Jace said.

Jevyn agreed that despite their naturally brotherly competition, sharing a birthday as twins — and such a unique birthday at that — has been a fun experience over the years. Even if SDSU outperformed USD on the gridiron this year.

"The rivalry between us has been strong. Whenever one sports team of ours beats the other, we are the first people to make fun of the other about it," Jevyn said. "This year for football was especially bad, with USD taking their second loss, and a pretty bad one at that, to SDSU, I heard about it every day for a week."

Rosebud Haukaas, of Mission, will be 36 this year, but will celebrate only her ninth birthday.

Like many other leaplings, she realized her birthday was different when she got to elementary school, but her parents made sure she had a special time to celebrate even on non-leap years when there was no Feb. 29.

"I have to say in elementary school (was when I noticed), but my parents always made it special, so it wasn't like I didn't have a day," Haukaas said. "When it came it was always a bit more special. I would celebrate on Feb. 28 but then I would celebrate the whole month because I didn't have a day."

She heard the usual jokes growing up about only being a quarter of the age she actually is, and it's something that has followed her into adulthood. As a counselor for students in kindergarten through high school, she gets the chance to share her unique birthday stories with the kids she works with.

She gets some sideways looks when she tells them her "leap year age."

"How?" Haukaas said students ask her when she tells them she will celebrate her ninth birthday in 2024.

Haukaas also noted that she and her daughter, Katelynn, turned eight on the same year, and her son, Logan, just turned eight in November, making them currently the "same" age.

As with other leaplings, Feb. 29 birthdays are usually memorable, and like other leaplings her last birthday came in 2020 just as the COVID-19 pandemic struck, making for quite the milestone, and one her friends tease her that they don't want to repeat.

"My friends were joking tha the last time was when we had COVID, so we're skipping your birthday this year," Haukaas said. "We went down to one of the bar and grills to go eat on Feb. 29, 2020, and everybody remembered the last time we got together before lockdown was Rosebud's birthday."

Haukaas said this year's celebration will be just a little less memorable.

"We plan on having supper with the family that day and then go to Omaha for the weekend," Haukaas said.

Heidi Stroud had a feeling that her daughter's birthday would be a unique day when she was born in 2008.

"When I got pregnant with Joslyn, I knew that her birthday would be special!" Stroud told the Mitchell Republic.

Stroud said her daughter has been known to celebrate her birthday on both Feb. 28 and March 1, making for a three-day holiday. It's something the family started since she only has her real birthday once every four years.

She has grown into enjoying her Feb. 29 birthday, but it was a bit of a different story when she was younger.

"When I was little I hated my birthday. I hated that I could never actually celebrate my real birthday every year," Cottingham said. "All of my friends used to make fun of me for only having a real birthday every four years. Once I got older I started to actually like my birthday. I realized it was very rare to have a leap year birthday."

When Feb. 29 does show up on a leap year, they do try to hype it up a little bit. There are flowers, balloons and cake. They have even done special radio announcements to mark the occasion, announcing to the greater Iroquois area that Conttingham has marked another birthday.

Stroud said Cottingham is used to the good-natured ribbing she gets from friends and family about her age. Though some might resent being told that they're younger than they actually are, Cottingham has embraced it, even occasionally trying to use it to her advantage by claiming she's "too young" to do certain chores or tasks.

"This year I turn four in leap year birthdays, but in reality I'm turning 16 years old. Now that I am older all my friends and family joke around about me only turning four years old, and that I'm going to be the youngest person to ever graduate, but at the end of the day I'm glad I'm a part of a rare birthday," Cottingham said.

Cottingham will mark her birthday with a family outing and, eventually, getting her driver's license, a big moment for any teenager.

"There will be, of course, flowers and cake," Stroud said.

Emersyn Allen doesn't quite understand yet what all the fuss is about her birthday.

"She hasn't realized it yet," said her mother, Kristina Stoltz Allen.

That's understandable. Having been born in 2020, Emersyn is about to celebrate her fourth birthday, and her first official Feb. 29 birthday since the day she arrived. That means her parents, Todd and Kristina, have celebrated all her birthdays on a different day than she was born.

"We try to celebrate on the last day of February, just because then it's still technically her birth month as opposed to celebrating in March," Kristina said.

Even if she's only about to turn four years old — or one in leap year birthdays — she still gets some light teasing from friends and family. It's something unique to embrace, and everyone gets in on the act about her birthday only coming once every four years.

Even dad.

"Emersyn's dad like to joke about how much money we could save on birthday parties and gifts — but it's all in fun. We always have and always celebrate her birthday every year," Kristina said.

And this Thursday, Feb. 29 will be no different, except it will be the first Feb. 29 Emersyn has seen since she was born. Of course that will make it a little extra special, Krsitina said.

But all birthdays are, especially when celebrated with loved ones.

"Just a typical celebration with family," Kristina said of this year's plan. "We have a cake and presents she will enjoy with her parents, brothers and sister!"