Published: February 24, 2008 12:51 am            

HAPPY BIRTHDAY — FINALLY: 'Leapers' glad to see Feb. 29 rolling around again

What do the composer of the William Tell Overture and the founder of U-Haul have in common with tough-guy actor Dennis Farina and burlesque icon Tempest Storm?

They’re all “leapers,” also called 29ers, leapeans, leaplings, leapsters or leapettes, who celebrate birthdays on Feb. 29 — a date that appears on the calendar only once about every four years. Another term for it: Eternal youth, or as close to it as anyone other than Dick Clark and Cher can get.

Created to remedy a flaw in the calendar that would otherwise result in a shift of seasons, leap years add an extra day to the month of February on most years divisible by four. But ask most 29ers, and you’ll get an alternative explanation for leap day: It’s a great excuse to celebrate their birth with quadruple gusto.

To these local leapers we say “Happy Birthday.” Four times over.



Eddie J. Knell, Jr., “age 10”

Jeffersonville

Owner, Affordable Electric

In 2000, 6-year-old Katie and 5-year-old E.J. brought to school something very unusual even for show-and-tell: a father who had just celebrated his 8th birthday.

“I’m an overgrown kid,” says Eddie J. Knell Jr., who will this year be celebrating his 10th birthday. A strapping 6-feet-2-1/2 inches tall, his hair splashed with gray, the founder of Affordable Electric says, “I’m the Peter Pan; the kid that’s never going to grow up. This year I get to be 10 all year and then next year 41. I have fun with it.”

“He’s more the 10-year-old than the 40-year-old,” says mother Bonnie Knell, who is “still trying to decide between the ‘juvenile’ routine and the ‘over-the-hill’ routine” for this year’s celebration. “We tease him he’ll never grow up.”

Bonnie remembers the night she drove in a blizzard to Ireland Army Community Hospital in Fort Knox where she was given the option of listing her son’s delivery as Feb. 28 or Mar. 1 on his birth certificate to spare him the complications associated with a leap day birth date.

“I said, ‘I went through all this snow and all this pain — it’s going to be leap day.’”

“Sometimes I tell him he’s acting his leap age when he’s playing with the kids,” says girlfriend Rhonda Kamer of New Albany. “My 7-year-old can’t figure out why he keeps saying he’s 10 years old when he’s so big.”

“I get to turn 16 again and 18 again and, if I’m extremely lucky, maybe 21 again,” laughs Knell. “It’s something that a lot of people don’t get to repeat.”



William C. Evans, “age 11”

Sellersburg

Owner, Evans Built Homes

“I don’t mind. I’m 44. I’ve had a few birthdays,” says William C. Evans.

Eleven, to be exact.

Like his fellow leapers, Evans gets to celebrate his true birth date only once every four years, leaving him to otherwise choose between Feb. 28 and Mar. 1. But since 2006, when youngest daughter Chelsea was born on one of “his” days, he’s been happy to share.

“As a kid who likes toys, I always took the earlier date, but now I have a daughter who was born on the twenty-eighth. She’ll turn 2 this year, so her birthday will probably take precedence over mine.”

Asked whether his leap day birthday has left him feeling more special or overlooked, Evans doesn’t hesitate: “More special, because you get a lot more attention on leap year.”

Indeed, a newspaper photograph of Evans on his first leap birthday is displayed proudly in the builder’s office at Evans Built Homes.

“One thing my mom used to do was get my picture in the paper until I was 12 and told her to stop because I was too old.”

This year, as his 11th birthday approaches, he’s young enough to appear in the paper again. Wife Angie will get to decide how many candles he’ll blow out, and Evans’ 6-year-old daughter Lindsay will be in charge of selecting the cake.

“As long as it’s ice cream,” says Evans in true 11-year-old style.



Jill Schellenberger, “age 5”

Greenville

Sophomore, Purdue University

“We had plans and the doctor had plans, but Jill said, basically, ‘I got other plans,’” remembers John Schellenberger of the morning his eldest daughter was born at Louisville’s Norton Hospital. (Sister Julie would follow the next year.)

Originally scheduled for a Cesarean delivery on a later date, Jill would be the first leapling born in the Louisville area that year.

“My wife Anita and I first thought ‘can we delay it for a day?,’ but we soon realized that this was a special day and she was a special baby.”

Today, the Purdue sophomore with the shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes is pursuing a double major in biology and nursing as she looks forward to her 5th birthday in 20 years.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to face turning 20,” she laughs. “Being able to say I’m a one-digit age is nice.”

Learning to appreciate the special nature of a once-in-four-years birthday took some doing. “People don’t realize how nice it is to have a day on the calendar,” she says. “When I was growing up, it was a bummer on the years when I didn’t have a birthday.”

Her strategy: “When it’s an off year, I claim both days around it — if I don’t have an actual day, I figure I can take half of each of those two.”

With her characteristic optimism, Jill has learned to appreciate the uniqueness of the day on several levels.

“It’s cool. It’s different. I’ve come to enjoy it. I think I’ll enjoy it more as my birthdays accumulate and I’ll embrace that younger age more and more.”



Jayne Ernstberger, “age 12”

New Albany

Physical education teacher, The Walden School

“My sixth-graders are excited that I’m going to be as old as they are now,” says Jayne Ernstberger, a physical education teacher at Louisville’s Walden School, approaching her 12th birthday this year. “They use it as a math problem, trying to figure out how old I am. The kids ask, ‘How can you be driving because you’re not old enough?’ They’ve been talking about it all year.”

The New Albany resident remembers some childhood birthday rough spots. “I went through a phase where I felt like it wasn’t fair — you just feel like you get left out.” But she is thankful to have had parents who always made sure that she had a birthday, whether it appeared on the calendar or not.

Some years she’d have more than one celebration. “When I was 16, we had parties all weekend — a slumber party and a surprise party and a family gathering.”

The knowledge of what it feels like to “lose” a birthday has benefited Ernstberger’s own two daughters: Alyson, born four days before Christmas; and Amanda, born near Mother’s Day. “We have to make sure that we celebrate both their birthdays and the holidays.”

Both daughters will be coming home from college for Ernstberger’s birthday this year, but plans have yet to be finalized.

“We’re going to Disneyland,” quips husband Hugh, whose birthday, on Jan. 2, is also liable to get lost in the holiday season.

“He thinks I’m spoiled because we celebrate on the twenty-eighth and on the first,” smiles Jayne. “He’s just jealous.”



Zane Nichols, “age 3”

Galena

Sixth-grader, Highland Hills Middle School

Ask Zane Nichols how old he’ll be on this year’s birthday and he’ll tell you straight out: “Three.”

And what will you say next year?

“Three and a quarter.”

The blonde, blue-eyed enthusiast of mathematics and puzzles, baseball and basketball is one of the tallest in his sixth-grade class at Highland Hills Middle School and, says his mother, Lori, “the “biggest 3-year-old you’ve ever seen.”

“I was trying my hardest to get him in before midnight, but it just didn’t work out that way,” quips Lori, a bookkeeper at Earth First in Greenville. “We’ve gotten used to it now, but at the beginning having a birthday just every four years took some adjusting.”

The first baby born at Floyd Memorial Hospital on Leap Day 1996 to Lori and David Nichols (brother Zach will be 14 in June) celebrates his “non leap” birthdays on whatever day falls closest to the weekend, or splits the difference: “We’ll go out to eat on one night and to the movies the next night.”

For Zane, celebrating a birthday every four years instead of annually seems preferable. This leaper is just as happy not being the center of attention, according to his mom.

Leap age or not, he is wise beyond his years. For his last true birthday, in 2004, the generous “2-year-old” opted to pass on his own gifts. Instead, at a cowboy-themed party, friends and family were asked to give donations of toys, clothing or other contributions to Goodwill Industries.



Carole Bodger Bon is a freelance journalist living in Floyds Knobs.

        

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