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SIERRA VISTA — Jessica Nuckles was born on a leap day, but she has never been one to make a big deal of it.
But today she will by taking the day off work and hopefully going out to dinner.
Nuckles, a schoolteacher in Bisbee, said she’s never met another person who shares her birthday, and she hasn’t typically had people notice her rare birth date on her identification. The Huachuca City resident’s encountered one problem with her birth date, which came when she was trying to purchase an item online and the site wouldn’t accept Feb. 29.
“I would be curious about the awareness of that day,” said the lifelong Arizonan who was born in 1976.
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There are some who are leap day aware. And there are some who want to bring more attention to it.
But for some like Nuckles, it will be a birthday — on their real birthday. And that is still unique.
At Peter Piper Pizza in Sierra Vista, shift manager Jessica Chester said on Thursday morning that one birthday party was scheduled for today, but it’s unknown if that person’s birthday is really on leap day.
At Buena High School, three people were born on leap day — two of the 2,599 students and one employee, said Donna Avina, spokeswoman for the Sierra Vista school district.
The Sierra Vista Regional Health Center may deliver some new members to the leap day club, but the hospital says nothing special has been planned for those babies.
And in San Francisco, Peter Brouwer, co-founder of the 7,000-member Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies, will spend today on vacation celebrating his birthday, as well as get word out via radio, television and newspaper about leap day and why it’s important.
“You have to say our birthday is a little strange,” he said Thursday afternoon between interviews and answering the hundreds of e-mails he’s receiving.
So, just why is leap day “a little strange”?
The obvious reason is that Feb. 29 only happens every four years, though every once in a while it happens every eight years — the last time was between 1896 and 1904, and the next skip will happen in 2100. There are 97 leap years every 400 years.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2000 figures, just 0.07 percent of the more than 244 million people in the United States, or about 170,900 people as of 2000, had a birthday on Feb. 29. Other days had between 0.25 percent and 0.32 percent of the population born on those days.
That all makes sense when you think about leap day only happening every four years.
Brouwer said his group estimates that about 1 in every 1,461 people born have a birthday on Feb. 29.
His group hopes to bring a greater awareness to leap day in a positive light. They want to remind people that leap day helps make sure the seasons come on time. Without leap day, spring would come a day earlier every year.
Brouwer said another message he hopes people take from leap day is to take a step back and look at the world around.
“We’ve become alienated from our universe,” he said.
Brouwer, who lives in the Pacific Northwest and was born in 1956, helped start a leap year Web site — www.leapyearday.com/ — in 1997 in an effort to meet others born on Feb. 29. The Web site contains everything from famous people with a birthday on that day to information about how leap day started.
He runs the Web site with Raenell Dawn, another “leaper” — a term, he said, that was created to describe a person born on leap day.
Brouwer and Dawn also help connect people born on leap day and help with special events, such as helping the “The Martha Stewart Show” gather 150 people born on Feb. 29 to fill the television program’s audience today.
Brouwer doesn’t remember the time when he became aware that his birthday was on a day different than most everyone else. He said his brother was born on March 4, so his family typically celebrated both at the same time.
An interest in astrology from a young age brought Brouwer to researching and finding out more about leap day. Through his Web site, he’s been able to meet people and find out their qualities and compare them with his own.
In one instance, he said he met a man from Belgium who was born only two minutes before him. He said he and that man had similar paths in their lives. For example, both traveled in each other’s home cities and both had been to India extensively, even going to the same city and staying in the same hotel.
Back in Cochise County, Nuckles said she hasn’t been interested in finding other people with the same birthday, and said she probably started noticing in grade school that her real birthday only showed up every four years. She typically has celebrated her birthday on Feb. 28.
This year Nuckles started researching leap year and leap day to teach her fourth- through sixth-grade students at Bisbee Middle School. She’s told the students why leap day happens every four years and why it occurs. She said her students have been excited about it, some asking her how old she really is if her birthday only shows up every four years.
Brouwer, whose organization also helps provide teachers and others with lessons and information on leap day, said those kind of questions are common for “leapers.” He said that when people notice his birthday, it usually strikes up at least a comment, if not a conversation.
On Thursday, he was a little worn out by it all, especially with media calling and e-mails continuing to come in. He says the questions about leap day typically start in December and don’t stop until leap day has passed.
Then he’ll get to wait another four years for it all to begin again.
On the net
• Lear Year Day Web site:
www.leapyearday.com/
Herald/Review Managing Editor Keith Allen can be reached at 515-4610 or by e-mail at keith.allen@svherald.com. Herald/Review reporter Dana Cole contributed to this report.
Rick and Monie Nuckles wrote on Mar 4, 2008 11:15 PM:
After reading your article, we began to wonder if all "leapers" were so especially kind and caring.
Our generation was always interested in what sign of the zodiac someone was born under, and how it may influence their personality traits.
Our son born March 6, is also a Pisces. He like she, has always, even as small child, been so thoughtful and aware of others feelings. We have found through the years, Jessica is much the same. Thanks for recognizing her birthday.
"