Last Carsonite of 20th Century born

Alana Suzanne Burson came into the world already notorious, the last person born in Carson City in the twentieth century.

Alana was born to Leslie and Chad Burson about 6 a.m. Friday at Carson-Tahoe Hospital. The 8-pound, 9-ounce, 21-inch-long girl was delivered by Dr. Matthew Barulich.

"I wasn't due until Jan. 8, so we weren't thinking about having a New Year's Baby," mother Leslie Burson said Saturday. "I found out Wednesday at the doctor's that I was getting ready to deliver. I'm just thankful we made it past Christmas."

Alana's father said the couple laughed when they read last winter that couples were trying to plan to have millennium babies.

"I think more like that bumper sticker - 'Babies Happen,'" Chad said.

For several years, the first baby of each year at Carson-Tahoe Hospital has received special gifts to mark the event. For this New Year's Eve, the hospital decided to do the same for the last baby of the year, according to hospital publicist Ronele Klingensmith.

"I went through the gift basket and there's blankets and bottles and all the stuff you need for a new baby," Chad said. "And there's gift certificates so we can go out and so Leslie can get a haircut. We have to thank Mary Scott and everyone else at C-TH and the merchants who put all this together for us."

Just in case the delivery timing had been close to midnight, the hospital set its clock to the atomic clock in Boulder, Colo., the world's most accurate timepiece, precise to billionths of a second, Klingensmith said.

But it didn't come to splitting seconds or even hours. After Alana made her candidacy known with a natal wail early Friday, no other expectant mothers showed up at the delivery room.

Two women gave birth to girls at the hospital Saturday evening, the first at 6:29 p.m and the second at 8:12 p.m. An obstetrics nurse said a third woman was in labor and still might deliver before midnight. More information about the first babies of the millennium was expected to be released today.

The Bursons, high school sweethearts from Riverside, Calif., have been in Carson more than five years and have a son, Ian, 3 1/2. Chad is a cement finisher for Lucky Concrete.

Grandparents John and Ursula Dudley are spending January here to help Leslie with the expanded family.

Contributors to the hospital's gift basket included Carson-Tahoe Hospital and its maternal and child health services department, Bella Hair Design, Papa Murphy's Take 'n' Bake Pizza, Schlotzsky's Deli, City Cafe and Bakery, Twinz Baby Products, the Ron Wood Family Resource Center, Family to Family, Breast Feeding Center, Rite Aid Pharmacy, Longs Drugs, Kmart, Mervyn's, Slot World's Caravan Cafe, B'sghetti's, Walgreen Drug Store, Kennedy's Books, Smith's Food & Drug Center, Raley's Supermarket & Drug Center, Target and Albertson's Food & Drug.