Leap Year baby Maness just now turning 18

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SILER CITY — Jane Maness belongs to a very exclusive group.

She entered the world, a happy and healthy baby girl, about two hours before noon on a Sunday. The year was 1948. The month was February.

The date? That’s where it gets interesting.

Maness says her birth date is “like a ‘Twilight Zone’ thing.”

Consult your 2020 calendar and you’ll find Maness’ special day — Saturday, Feb. 29 — right where you’d expect it, nestled securely between Friday, Feb. 28 and Sunday, March 1.

But in most years, there’s no such date, the 29th of February occurring — and so marked on calendars — only every four years.

That makes 2020 what’s known as a leap year — that is, a calendar year containing an additional day, added to keep the calendar year in sync with the astronomical, or seasonal, year. Leap day is always Feb. 29.

And that makes Maness, and all others who share the rarefied birthday, a leapling or, if you prefer, a leaper, though she herself uses neither of those terms.

“I’ve always just called myself a leap year baby,” she said.

This month marks Maness’ 18th birthday, going strictly by the inclusion of her birth date on calendars. In actual years, of course, she’s preparing to celebrate her 72nd. But bona fide birthdays that fall on the precise date of her birth? This will be Maness’ 18th.

“Most people,” she said, “once they find out, they’ll say ‘Oh, that’s cool.’”

Retired now, Maness taught 6th-graders at Chatham Middle School in Siler City for all but one of her 32 years in the classroom, and her students, rest assured, enjoyed some silliness thanks to their teacher’s unusual date of birth.

“The kids would have a lot of fun and say things like they were older than me,” she said. “Because, back then, I’d maybe be having my 6th birthday, or my 7th, since I only have one every four years. But I’d also explain it to them, that I’d been on this earth longer. But the day I was born doesn’t exist except every four years. On the 28th, I’d not been born yet. But on the 1st, I’m already a day old. It’s like a ‘Twilight Zone’ thing.”

The odds of being born on any given day are 1 in 365. The odds of being born on February 29 are considerably greater at 1 in 1,461.

“In my 32 years of teaching, I had only one student who was a leap year baby,” Maness said.

From an early age, she knew her birthday was a special date. In the northern Moore County town of Robbins, where she was born and raised, only one other person shared her unusual birthday.

“It’s a small town,” Maness said, “but there were two of us. There was one other girl. I remember at least once or twice we celebrated our birthdays together, and everybody came.”

As a child, Maness was also an official member, for the few years of its existence, of the Leap Year Club, an organization formed in 1952 and “composed only of persons with birthdays on February 29,” stated a contemporaneous write-up about the group published in the Greensboro Daily News.

Attending the first meeting of the Leap Year Club, held in the Guilford County town of Julian, was then-Governor of North Carolina W. Kerr Scott, who spoke to the special group, saying “I’m not here as a member of your club but am here representing my grandmother, whose birthday was the same as yours.”

Maness was only 4 (or a mere 1-year-old, if strictly adhering to calendar dates) at the time the club was organized and doesn’t remember the event. But she has a yellowed newspaper clipping, which includes a photograph of her being held by Gov. Scott.

As a member of the exclusive club, she also was given a round lapel pin, about the size of a button, with the club’s name encircling a large “4.”

“It’s just a piece of memorabilia,” she said. “I don’t ever wear it.”

So rare are leap year birthdays, only a handful of household name celebrities — the late Dinah Shore being one, rapper Ja Rule another — share the birth date.

The unusual distinction, however, has never posed real problems or complications for Maness.

“Sometimes, I’ve had to repeat my birthday for somebody because people would realize there aren’t 29 days in February,” she said. “But mostly, I never really had any problems. Never had any trouble at the DMV, or anything like that.”

Being a leap year baby, Maness said, has always been “fun,” though probably a little less so when she was very young.

“When I was a child, I probably felt like I didn’t have a birthday,” she said. “My parents always were good; they always did something. But when I actually had a birthday, that was like a special time.”

As an adult, she’s made the most of her recent birthdays. “It’s become a tradition that my daughter and I do something special,” she said.

They usually travel somewhere, as they did for her 17th birthday four years ago when they visited Asheville. (Maness’ husband, Donald, isn’t fond of travel and stays home on these birthday outings to look after the couple’s cats.)

On her 16th (64th) birthday, Maness’ daughter Laurin bought her mother a sash with “Sweet 16” emblazoned across it.

“She made me wear it,” Maness said, the memory producing a laugh. “I got some looks.”

She and Laurin are planning what Maness calls a “bucket list experience, something special” for her upcoming birthday celebration, which makes sense.

Something special is what you’d expect of someone turning 18.

Randall Rigsbee can be reached at rigsbee@chathamnr.com.