If you run into Annandale businessman Roger Millner this week, wish him a happy birthday. He’s celebrating his 14th. You read it right. F-o-u-r-t-e-e-n-t-h. Roger’s birthday is on Feb. 29, a date that makes its appearance only once every four years. So though he was born in 1948 and turns 56 on Sunday, his actual birth date will have come up on the calendar only 14 times since then. Roger owns M&M Bus Service Inc., which provides school bus service to Annandale and Maple Lake schools. He was born in St. Gabriel’s Hospital in Little Falls and raised on a farm at Pierz. Complications The date wasn’t the only thing out of the ordinary. While his two brothers and three sisters were born at home, he was born in the hospital because his mother suffered complications. And the trip itself was complicated by a huge snowstorm. Plow trucks from the county opened the main road while his father used a team of horses to pull the car that far, then drove into Little Falls. Being a leap year baby has brought him his share of notoriety. “My first birthday was in the Morrison County paper,” he said. Roger produced a yellowed news clipping from a scrapbook. “Although Roger is four years old, he had his first ‘official’ birthday observance today – complete with a cake bearing one candle,” the story said. It was accompanied by a photo of him and his first official birthday cake. Roger still has the original print. His family didn’t celebrate birthdays much, he said, and a candy bar for the birthday child might be the only recognition. But each time his birth date came around his mother had a cake for him. “She treated it special.” Then there was the hazing from other kids. “You get teased a lot,” he said, recalling how others would remind him he didn’t have a birthday that year. But it was mostly in fun. Being born on Feb. 29 has been a positive distinction, he said. “It never bothered me.” As a child he didn’t like missing birthdays, “but now that I’m getting older it’s more of an advantage.” He laughed about telling a friend: “You’re going to turn 56 this year and I’ll be only 14.” Roger and wife Karen have four children – Shari Danzeisen, Shelly Jonas, Scott and Sam – and five grandchildren. None of them was born on Feb. 29, but Roger has a niece whose husband was, and so was Karen’s nephew. The Millners usually celebrate his actual birthdate with a family gathering. “They’ll probably surprise me,” he said. Which date does he celebrate in the off years? “Karen always says that I celebrate it on the 28th and the first just to make sure I get the right date.”