BUCYRUS — How do people choose to celebrate their birthday if they were born on Feb. 29? Local residents recently weighed in on how they celebrate Leap Year birthdays.

February 29, Leap Day occurs every four years and this year is a leap year. Leap day is added to the calendar as a corrective measure since the Earth does not orbit the sun in exactly 365 days. It orbits the sun in 365 days and six hours.

For Leap-Year born Jo Leonhardt Kistner, her birthday was made even more special each year by her beloved grandmother, Helen Noblit, who passed away on Tuesday this week.

“I was her firstborn blood granddaughter after she raised three boys of her own. It was a happy day for her when I was born. I know because she told me all the time and aunts and uncles and my mom would tell me too,” Kistner said. “She always made birthdays special by baking homemade cakes and having family get-togethers. On leap years, we would all go to a place called Freddy’s in Bucyrus and have ice cream Sundays.”

On this Leap Day, Kistner will share her special day with her grandma.

“Ironically, we are laying her to rest on my Leap Year birthday this Saturday,” Kistner said. “I feel honored to share my special day with her now. She was a smart, funny, amazing woman with a beautiful soul. She was the queen of birthday celebrations. Her love showed me what it means to be family and why birthdays are so very very important.”

Corine Banks gave birth to her son, Aeron Paynter, on Feb. 29, 2004.

“He was actually featured in the 2008 leap day newspaper for Bucyrus,” Banks said. “We celebrate his birthday usually on March 1 but it never truly feels like his birthday on those years. For his leap day birthdays, we celebrate his actual age and his leap year age. So this year he will get a cake that says 4th birthday and a cake that says 16th birthday.”

Tonya Wallace said her son was born on leap year in 2012.

“His dad was deployed at the time of his birth, so it was March 1 so for our tradition, we celebrate his birthday on March 1 which has special meaning but every 4 years he gets to have his actual special day,” Wallace said.

Melissa Kapp Pope is also mom to a son born on Leap Day.

“I have a son who was born on February 29. He will be 12, or ‘3’ depending on how he looks at it,” Pope said.

Tywana Quesinberry has always celebrated her now-adult son, David’s birthday on Feb. 28.

“I have to really think about it when David’s actual birthday is on leap year,” Quesinberry said.

Stacia Hedrick’s dad was a Leap Year baby.

“We always celebrated the 28th because he was born eight minutes after 12,” Hedrick said.

Many local residents remember the many ways Tom Moore, the founder of the WBCO and WQEL radio stations, celebrated his birthday and others born Feb. 29. Moore and his wife, Lavonne, now reside in Delaware. He is turning 92 this Leap Day.

“He always says since his birthday is only every four years, he’s actually one-fourth. He’ll be 92, so he says he’ll be 23,” Maggie Barth said. “There is a planned community celebration for him in Delaware where he and LaVonne currently live.”

Moore’s daughter, Randy Moore Garrett, said her dad recently wanted to share a poem about Leap Year with fellow residents at Willow Brook in Delaware.

“We couldn’t find any we liked, so he and I wrote one for him,” Garrett said. “Four years ago, he notified the Delaware Mayor that leap year babies should be singled out and he even drafted a proclamation for her. This year, she took the initiative to invite all local leaplings to last Tuesday’s city council meeting and treated them to cake and city resolution.”

Some area businesses are getting in on the celebration of Leap Year birthdays. The Olive Garden is offering four desserts for people with a Feb. 29 birthday.

“At the Renaissance (in Tiffin), we’re giving everyone born on the 29th a free drink,” Bucyrus resident and Renaissance bartender Logan Beeman said. “Unfortunately, they have to hear my dad joke about how they’re only eight years old and can’t be in the bar.”