Tom Tolen / news@whmi.com

To Howell resident Danica Katnik, Thursday was a very special day. It was special not just because it was her birthday, but because for her, it only comes around once every four years.

Danica is one of those special people who were born on Leap Day, which is the 29th of February during Leap Year. In other years, February only has 28 days.

Katnik, 32, celebrated her birthday this year by going with her boyfriend to a fine dining establishment in Brighton, and says, “It was an amazing evening.”

Katnik says being born on Feb. 29th has caused occasional inconveniences over the years. She says that legally, her birthday is Feb. 28th "because Feb. 29th is not listed on many forms."

Katnik says her 2010 graduating class at 2,000-plus student Howell High School was unusual in that she had two classmates who were also Leap Day babies. That defies the odds, which say that, as the least common birthday, there’s only a one in 1,461 chance of being born on Leap Day, vs. a one in 365 chance of being born on any other day of the year.

She says things would’ve been a lot simpler for her if she had been born an hour later since she was born at 11 pm, and that would’ve made it March 1st. Katnik says her mother was trying to delay labor so she wouldn’t be a Leap Day baby, but nature had other plans.

Katnik previously worked for the city of Howell and also worked for WHMI radio for a few years as a part-time reporter. She is currently employed in the Community Development Dept. for the city of Saline and commutes daily from Howell.