Did you know there are an estimated 187,000 people in the United States that were born on a leap day?
A couple Utahns explain how it feels to be born on the rarest day of the year — or technically, every four years.
Randy Harward, a student at Salt Lake Community College, knows all too well what having a birthday on Feb. 29 means and says he actually enjoys being a leap year baby.
“Out of so many possible birthdays, mine is the most rare. I don’t get screwed over like people who are born on Christmas Day and get those terrible birthday-Christmas combo cop-out presents,” Harward says. “In fact, since people are confused about when I celebrate it, it’s like having two birthdays. I hear ‘happy birthday’ on [February] 28th and [March] 1st, which is when I celebrate it on off-years.”
Harward adds that when a leap year comes around he knows it’s really his birthday because the parties get bigger and it’s always fun to find someone else who shares the special birthday with you.
Cameron Spotten of Spanish Fork just happens to be one of those other lucky leap year babies who knows all too well just how different celebrating his birthday can be.
“I always pick a random day of the year, like 4th of July or Groundhog Day, to celebrate my birthday,” Spotten says. “My friends and family always know that I pick a different day of year every year except when Leap Day actually arrives. That’s when we definitely go big.”
While there are some minor drawbacks — for example, being asked by other people if it’s like the movie, or being reminded that it’s not their real birthday during non-leap years — leap day birthdays are a unique event that only a select few can take pride in.
