Leapers of the world unite --
and savor a rare centennial Leap Year Day
By David Crary, Associated Press writer
NEW YORK -- For parents debating a
name for their Feb. 29 newborn,
the Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies has some suggestions:
Leaporah, Leapton. Leapfrey, perhaps. Or for a Nordic touch,
Leap Ericson.
With or without such bouncy names, any baby born today will
stand apart
even from others with the distinction of a Leap Year Day
birthday. This is the
first Leap Day in 400 years to start a century.
To mark the occasion, Leap Day parties are planned across the
United States
and overseas, promoted by "Leaper" Web sites that have
linked people whose
birthdays come only once every four years.
"We get a lot of people e-mailing us who've never met
anyone else born on
Leap Year Day," said Raenell Dawn, co-founder of the Honor
Society. "They're
pretty thrilled to find they're not alone."
The most vigorously promoted party, a four-day event that
got a head
start Saturday, is in the small farming town of Anthony,
straddling the
Texas-New Mexico state line. Thousands of people, including
dozens
of genuine "leapers," are expected at the festivities
in what has been
proclaimed the Leap Year Capital of the World.
Statistically, one of every 1,461 people is a leaper. There
are an estimated
200,000 in the United States and 4.1 million worldwide.
Leapers from more than 30 countries have joined the Honor
Society of Leap
Year Day Babies, which is approaching a membership of 1,300.
Among them is J.N. Oleap Fernando, a professor from Sri
Lanka, who
proposed that other parents emulate his own by giving their Leap
Day babies
names that reflect the special date.
Raenell Dawn, born on Leap Year Day in 1960 (and thus
celebrating her 10th
birthday Tuesday), endorsed this campaign on the Honor Society
Web site.
She also lobbies for her own favorite cause: persuading calendar
publishers
to designate the quadrennial Feb. 29s as Leap Year Day.
"I've written hundreds of letters, and I've never heard
back from any of them,"
she said from her home in Salem, Ore. "You'd think they'd
get the hang of it,
since it's a date that celebrates the calendar."
Only a handful of mass-produced calendars designate the day,
she said. One
of them -- a Grateful Dead calendar -- adorns her home even
though she
doesn't listen to the band's music.
The Internet's reach has enabled leapers worldwide to feel
part of a collegial,
high-spirited movement. But Dawn said some elderly leapers have
told her of
a different era in their youth, when a Feb. 29 birthday was
considered enough
of an inconvenience that some parents considered registering the
birth date as
Feb. 28 or March 1.
Even
now, some computers have trouble registering Feb. 29.
The leap year system was adopted by Julius Caesar to keep the
calendar from
getting out of whack and was adjusted in 1582 by Pope Gregory
XII. An extra day
is added every four years, except for years ending in 00 --
unless the year is
divisible by 400. Thus 2000 is a leap year, and so was 1600, but
1700, 1800
and 1900 were not.
Pope Gregory was not a leaper, but one of his 16th century
predecessors --
Pope Paul III -- was. So were bandleader Jimmy Dorsey, singer
Dinah Shore,
football player Fran Tarkenton and hockey star Henri
"Pocket Rocket" Richard.
This year, the Web of leapers is poised to identify some the
first 21st century
"leaplings" -- newborn leapers, as defined in Raenell
Dawn's "leaptionary."
There's even an electronic greeting card available to mark the
occasion.
The message: "Jump for Joy!"
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