The Durst Quadruplets: Four at fourteen

Poor Donald Trump.

Poor Donald Trump?

During a TV talk-show taping eight years ago, the Donald met his match when the Durst girls -- a blur of identical quadruplets from Buffalo, Minn. -- commandeered his office with a brash innocence that could make the toughest New Yorker cower. "Are you rich?" Megan Durst asked, pausing a moment before three other freckled-faced whirlwinds peppered Trump with questions.

During another TV appearance, on "The Tonight Show" when they were in kindergarten, the always-animated Durst quads left George Clooney and Rob Lowe dazed and breathless. You don't interview the Durst quadruplets, you referee them, a bemused Jay Leno told Oprah Winfrey two years ago during her show about "America's Most Amazing Kids."

But these auburn-haired dynamos, whom Star Tribune readers have followed since infancy when they were four on the floor, are now 14 years old and ready to start high school. And suddenly they've met their match: hormones.

Calli, Kendra, Megan and Sarah Durst make up one of only 60 known sets of identical quadruplets worldwide -- of which 37 sets are girls. Their mother, Naomi Durst, a Maple Lake High School English teacher, beat the odds of one in 700,000 by having quadruplets without using fertility drugs. She might be defying even greater odds by maintaining her sanity. Because the odds of these girls agreeing on anything these days is nearly off the charts.

A typical conversation:

Sarah: "I weigh 95 pounds."

Kendra: "You don't weigh 95 pounds."

Megan: "Sarah does not weigh 95 pounds."

Kendra: "She weighs 99 pounds."

Calli: "How come you're so exact about everything? At least we all agree that 'Tom Sawyer' was a good book."

Kendra: "'Tom Sawyer' was stupid. Who wants to read a book written in the 1800s?"

Sarah: "I weigh 96."

Megan: "Sarah, you weigh 98, so get over it."

With these quads, who range in height from a hair less than 5 feet 1 inch (Calli) to just under 5 feet (Sarah), size of personality matters.

"Their personalities seem bigger than life, but they're so different," said Alisa Ireland, their seventh-grade English teacher, who watched the quads dominate a recent Buffalo youth-league soccer game. "They've become such leaders, but they don't realize it yet.

"People are so impressed. 'Oh, the Durst girls. You mean you know them?' They don't seem to care about fame. They just want to be young girls.

"But they're all so beautiful. What is Naomi going to do with four beautiful girls?"

Their mother will not allow them to date yet. Their Internet access is limited. And the quads claim they are the only girls they know without cell phones. Not that boys aren't calling. After Buffalo's annual July rodeo weekend, a favorite event for the quads, Naomi Durst's phone bill included several cell calls from Missouri and Texas area codes.

The quads have been popular since their premature birth Feb. 10, 1993, at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, when they ranged in weight from 2 pounds, 1 ounce (Sarah) to 3 pounds, 9 ounces (Megan).

"If you are a quadruplet, you're naturally surrounded with attention and you're a curiosity," said Marti Andersen, 57, of Albert Lea, Minn. Andersen grew up in Sleepy Eye, Minn., as one of the Seifert quadruplets, believed to be the first Minnesota quadruplets to reach adulthood. When the Seiferts were born in 1950, there were only 11 known sets of quadruplets in the country, Andersen said. At last count, there were 468.

"We were so unusual that when we were 2, we were put on display at the State Fair for two weeks," Andersen said. "People paid 25 cents to see us."

Perceptions change. Other things don't. Andersen could offer little advice to the Dursts as they navigate those challenging teenage years. "Just enjoy one another," she said. "You're the only ones who understand what you're going through."

But in the Dursts' world, the land of 10,000 freckles, there seems nothing identical about these quadruplets who look so much alike that Sarah congratulated a teammate at a recent game by saying, "Good job, Megan." Except she was talking to Kendra.

"We all go our own way," said Calli, considered the tomboy of the four.

All four girls are expected to play soccer when they enter Buffalo High School in a few weeks. "All the high school coaches want them," Jim Durst said of his daughters. But while Kendra, Megan and Sarah plan to continue in gymnastics, Calli concentrates on basketball.

Calli is the most argumentative, the others say. Kendra, whom her sisters say is the best gymnast, is the "girliest" of the group, always wanting to look nice and clean. Outgoing Megan loves makeup -- but maybe not as much as she loves shopping or wearing brown. Sarah -- tough, sensitive and occasionally reserved -- is the nicest, the others say.

"We think of ourselves as four sisters who happened to be born the same day," Megan said. "We don't think of ourselves as quadruplets."Then what are we?" Calli asked.

"How about that lady who asked if we were sisters," said Kendra.

"My favorite," said Sarah, "was the woman who asked if we were twins. So we told her, sure. We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings."

The girls sleep in bunk beds in the basement bedroom they've shared since birth -- the room that 16-year-old brother Travis avoids. When Megan climbs into the bunk bed above Kendra, and Sarah lies down above Calli, you can imagine the bedtime conversations. The girls won't share their online passwords with one another. But when the bedtime talk turns to makeup, boys, nail polish, hair, boys, sports, clothes, boys, country music, the phone, or boys, everything is fair game.

Only when asked about their parents' divorce of a year ago does the chattering stop. Some things don't go as planned, they know all too well. Both Naomi and Jim Durst have twins in their families. After Travis was born, they wanted another baby. "We never planned on four at once," said Jim, who fills service orders at Star West Chevrolet in Delano.

"Fourteen is such a tough age," said Marcia Bergquist of Virginia, Minn., the mother of quadruplet girls -- three identical, now 31 and all married. "They'll always have each other."

They'll have support. After being wowed by their TV appearances on "Today" and "Tonight" and on talk shows hosted by Montel Williams and Maury Povich, an entire nation has watched the girls grow up. Buffalo certainly is watching.

To think it was only three years ago, during their first week of junior high school, when a cook in the cafeteria told teacher Tom Gould, "I just saw a girl come through four times for breakfast."

Paul Levy • 612-673-4419