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|| High Country Press Newswire

February 28, 2008 issue

Leap Year Twin Will Celebrate Sixth—or 24th—Birthday This Year

Leap Day twins Jeremy and Melissa Needle, 21 years old in the photo, celebrate Thanksgiving 2005 at a friend’s house. ASU student Melissa Needle plans to celebrate her “sixth” birthday this year in Boone. Photo courtesy of Melissa Needle Story by Corinne Saunders

What is more rare than being born on Leap Day? Being a Leap Day twin, of course.

“The odds [are very low] of being born on the 29th and to be a twin,” said Melissa Needle, an ASU science major with a pre-professional concentration.

The odds of being born on Leap Day are estimated to be 1:1,461, and about 187,000 U.S. citizens and 4 million people worldwide have Leap Day birthdays, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Needle and her twin brother Jeremy, who is married and living in Maryland, will turn 24 years old on February 29. The day will mark only their sixth “real” birthday, since Leap Day appears on the calendar once every four years.

Needle feels her Leap Day birthday is even more unique than birthdays that fall on annual holidays such as Easter, Christmas or New Year’s.

“It’s kind of like being born on a holiday, [but] this is the ultimate holiday: it only comes once in a blue moon,” she said.

This year, Needle will celebrate her special day in Boone.

“This year I’m throwing a party,” Needle said. “I think my parents are planning on coming up [to Boone] the day after my party.”

At age 3, Leap Day twins Jeremy and Melissa Needle sit on a bench in California, their birth state. The twins will celebrate their 24th birthday, or sixth actual birthday, this year. Photo courtesy of Melissa Needle Unlike most children, she and her brother usually had to decide when to celebrate their birthday when they were growing up.

“We used to celebrate it whenever that weekend was,” Needle said. The twins had a birthday party every year until they were about 10 years old, but event was always bigger on leap years, she added.

“My mom usually threw us a party when February 29 rolled around, bigger than normal,” Needle said.

After the twins were about to enter middle school, the annual party was replaced by going out to eat for the birthday celebration. She and Jeremy could each bring a friend to eat out at a nice restaurant, such as a Japanese steakhouse, she explained.

New acquaintances generally ask her one particular question concerning her birthday, she said.

“The first thing everyone asks is, ‘when do you celebrate your birthday?,’” Needle said. “I usually count the 28 as being my birthday because it’s still in February. It’s at 12:00 p.m. that day [the 28], that one minute,” she added jokingly.