Brown was born in 1932—on Feb. 29. She's a Leap Year Day baby with a vision and a mission to make her little community of Anthony, which straddles the borders of New Mexico and Texas, into the "Leap Year Capital of the World."
She's made great strides as founder of the Worldwide Leap Year Festival and a charter member of the Worldwide Leap Year Birthday Club.
Since the first impromptu fiesta in 1988, she's managed to field festivities that have attracted "29ers" or "Leapers," as Leap Year babies call themselves, from throughout the world, along with national media attention, celebrities and thousands of Leap Year fans.
"We say that we've had 10,000 people at the festival, but you should remember that includes the people who live here and come out to watch the parade," said Brown, who works hard to give them something interesting to watch.
This year, it will be parade marshal Josephine Concho Abeita, 25 (in 29er years), of Albuquerque.
"Josephine was born on Feb. 29, 1908, four years before New Mexico became a state, in the village of Seama. She's a Laguna Indian and the mother of eight sons and one daughter. We're very excited to announce that assuming she continues in her normal state of good health, she'll be leading the parade," Brown said.
The biggest 29er bash to date was a millennium celebration. In 2000, famed 1960s artist Peter Max created a festival logo and T-shirt for the event and there was a concert featuring Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills and Nash fame.
"Graham's wife, Susan, is a 29er. They brought the whole family from Hawaii, over 30 people, and Graham and Susan led the parade. Susan wore a mermaid costume she got from Bette Midler and Graham was a fisherman," Brown said.
It was a spectacular event compared to the first fiesta.
Back on Feb. 1, 1988, she proposed that the Anthony Chamber of Commerce host a festival centered around Leap Year Day to bring recognition and needed funds to the community.
With less than a month to plan the celebration, she enlisted family members, including her husband, now deceased.
"That first year, it was just a little party in my husband's shop, Joe Bob Brown's Anthony Auto Parts. But I'm a former journalist, and I used to be writer and publisher of a weekly newspaper called Mesilla Valley Perspectives, so I did my best to get the word out," she said. "We had nine people there with Leap Year birthdays ... and it just kept growing.
Brown said they had 107 Leapers attend in 2004 from every state and from as far as Germany and Switzerland. The Leapers range in age from newborns to a 92-year-old celebrating his 23rd birthday.
"In 1992 a gentleman registered his 104-year-old mother, Luz Bejarano, who celebrated her 26th birthday that year, but Josephine Abeita will be the first person over 100 to actually attend," she said.
Membership in the Worldwide Leap Year Birthday Club has grown from zero in 1988 to over 400.
Art Franco, Anthony's mayor and this year's festival chair, said the Leap Year party has become a source of community pride and has put Anthony on the map for many.
"It started out as kind of a small deal and now it's turned into a community festival that the whole community in both Texas and New Mexico gets involved in. Some people tell me they didn't know where we were until they came to this festival. We get a lot of Leap Year birthday people and other people and it's a good time for the whole community," Franco said.
This year's festival—from Feb. 28 through March 1—will include a carnival, a golf tournament, a get acquainted session for Leapers and a trip to Sunland Park Casino.