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— Not everyone gets to experience their true birthday each year. Rush Lake resident Lynne Bender will finally turn 18 this February on leap day; although she's technically 72 years old. As a leap day baby, the actual day of her birth only comes around once every four years, and this Feb. 29, she'll get to experience that for the 18th time in her life.

"The 28th worked real well (to celebrate)," Bender said of her birthdays growing up. "I wasn't born in March. It had to be February. Oh gosh, I got teased so bad all the time. Well, not teased in a bad way. Teased just because they thought it was unique, and it is unique."

Bender was born on Feb. 29, 1952, in Moorhead, and that's where she spent quite a bit of her life alongside her brother and parents. She grew up walking distance from Thomas Edison Elementary ÍáÍáÂþ»­, and she remembers everyone walking to school together each day. Now, Moorhead is much larger, and the idea of so many kids having to bus to class is foreign to her.

When asked what it was like growing up in Moorhead, Bender laughed and said, "Back in the dark ages? Yeah, life was a lot simpler then. I can't believe how intense it's gotten. Of course, there was no internet and all that stuff. At that point in time, it was a small city. So it was nice — family-friendly and didn't have much crime. I really liked it there."

She later attended Concordia College in town, where she earned a teaching degree in home economics and Spanish. Though she taught home economics for about two years, she quickly realized the path wasn't for her. So, she decided to pursue nursing and became an RN.

She got a job at Sanford in Fargo — then known as St. Luke's Hospital — and spent her days caring for patients.

"Right from when I was a little girl, I wanted to be a nurse," Bender reflected. "I just got kind of swayed into teaching, and I didn't like teaching very much. Nursing was a good career — a better career for me. That was my career for the rest of my life ... It just felt right, and it was a job I could do, so why not?"

At some point in her adulthood, she got married to her husband Rodney and had two boys. One now lives in Minneapolis while the other lives in Melbourne, Florida. She even has some grandchildren. In fact, her grandson, Anthony, will be turning 18 in 2024 right alongside his grandmother.

Contributed / Lynne Bender

Bender retired when she was 66 years old, and she and her husband decided they wanted to live on a lake. So, they looked into some homes around the area and found a lake cabin on Rush Lake. They've been there ever since, enjoying the beautiful summers by the water.

In the cold winters, she and her husband migrate to Florida, where they stay in a trailer house to escape the snow and spend time with family. In fact, that's where she'll be celebrating her 18th birthday this year.

"If I have (a birthday) on the 29th, we usually do something bigger than average," she said. "You know, we go out to eat at a fancy place and have a little more of a family time since it's really my birthday. People come up to me and say, 'This is your real birthday.'"

Though plans are still up in the air, Bender was thinking that she and the family might go to a Brazilian steakhouse in Melbourne. Servers bring out all these different plates of meat, and you can choose what you want to eat.

When asked what it was like to finally turn 18, Bender laughed and said: "Oh, I feel all of 72 years old."