A woman now, 1988's 'Leap Year baby' happy, successful

As a 1988 "Leap Year baby," Britteny Lukenbill will have officially had only six birthdays today. The Nevada High School and Fort Scott Community College graduate works two full-time jobs and says friends and family keep her content to stay in her hometown. Her dog's name is Kahlua.

The Leap Year baby who appeared on the front page of the Daily Mail just after her Feb. 29, 1988, birth turns 24 today or, as she laughingly puts it, "6."

Britteny Lukenbill had a tough time growing up, suffering deafness in both ears until the summer before ninth grade at Nevada Middle School, but she has become happy and successful since then, achieving financial independence and maintaining a wide circle of friends and relatives.

Describing an arduous series of reconstructive surgeries in Fort Scott and Joplin that fully restored her hearing, she said, "I had made F's my whole life and then started making A's and B's and was on the high school honor roll.

"I wouldn't wear a hearing aid or learn sign language. I was a little rebel. Then after I passed my hearing test, I became more talkative and started making more friends. It changed my personality and made me a different person."

Lukenbill explained that she "had a bad fall one year," sustaining a broken bone in one ear and a perforated ear drum in the other. She graduated from Nevada High School in 2006 and earned a cosmetology degree at Fort Scott Community College.

She was a Smart Styles hairdresser at the Wal-Marts here and in Fort Scott and now works with disabled people at Skills Unlimited and Alternative Opportunities. "I was in school when I found out what it meant (technically to have a birthday only once every four years)," Britteny said.

"I would brag about it, 'Ha, ha, I'm only 4 years old. How does it feel to be so much older than me?' If I date a guy, I make a joke out of it. I usually celebrate on the 28th, but this year we will have dinner at Backroads Steakhouse and go to the Vikings 502 bar."

Asked why she works two full-time jobs, Lukenbill said, "I guess it's independence.

"I pay for everything. I have my own house, a Chrysler PT Cruiser and a Pontiac Grand Am. I recently visited Texas for the first time at Corpus Christi. It was the first time I had flown and the first time I'd been out of state."

One of her best friends, Angela Jean Esry, said she "is one of the best people I know.

"I know I can rely on Britteny because she and I have been through just about everything together," said Esry. "I've known her for six years and I have never seen her get mad at anyone. She is fun-loving and very outgoing."

Esry, 26, said Lukenbill enjoys getting tattoos and "hanging out with friends, just being there for all of us.

"We met in high school when she was dating my husband's best friend. We clicked and have been inseparable ever since. She is an amazing person and I love her."

Britteny's other friends include Tara Edwards. Other favorite activities are shopping and doing the hair of friends, relatives and the supervisors and disabled people she works with. She maintains her Missouri and Kansas cosmetology licenses.

Her parents are Brenda Lukenbill and Steve Vignolo and her siblings Zach Vignolo and Brandy Duncan, all of Nevada. "I am really close to all my friends and family and I knew they would never move away," she said.

"When I turned 5, we went to Ryan's Family Steakhouse in Joplin and had a balloon," she said, chuckling again. "It was quite embarrassing."