Editing Ken Kesey (section)

== Biography ==
=== Early life ===
Kesey was born in 1935 in [[La Junta, Colorado]], to dairy farmers Geneva (née Smith) and Frederick A. Kesey.<ref name="NYTobit">[[Christopher Lehmann-Haupt|Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher]]. "[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02EFDC1238F932A25752C1A9679C8B63 Ken Kesey, Author of 'Cuckoo's Nest', Who Defined the Psychedelic Era, Dies at 66]", ''[[The New York Times]]'' (November 11, 2001). Retrieved February 21, 2008.</ref> When Kesey was 10 years old, the family moved to [[Springfield, Oregon]] in 1946.<ref name="oregonianobit" /> Kesey was a champion [[Scholastic wrestling|wrestler]] in high school and college in the {{convert|174|lb|adj=on}} weight division. During high school, Kesey almost qualified to be on the [[United States at the 1956 Summer Olympics|Olympic]] team; however, a serious shoulder injury halted his wrestling career. He graduated from [[Springfield High School (Oregon)|Springfield High School]] in 1953.<ref name="oregonianobit" /> An avid reader and filmgoer, the young Kesey took [[John Wayne]], [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]], and [[Zane Grey]] as his role models (later naming a son Zane) and toyed with [[magic (illusion)|magic]], [[ventriloquism]] and [[hypnotism]].<ref>Macdonald, Gina, and Andrew Macdonald. "Ken Kesey". ''Magill's Survey of American Literature'', Revised Edition (2007): Literary Reference Center. EBSCO.</ref>

While attending the [[University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication]] in neighboring [[Eugene, Oregon|Eugene]] in 1956, Kesey eloped with his high-school sweetheart, [[Oregon State University|Oregon State College]] student Norma "Faye" Haxby, whom he had met in seventh grade.<ref name="oregonianobit" /> According to Kesey, "Without Faye, I would have been swept overboard by notoriety and weird, dope-fueled ideas and flower-child girls with beamy eyes and bulbous breasts."<ref name="esquire">{{cite web |url=http://www.chipbrown.net/articles/kesey.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050318082711/http://www.chipbrown.net/articles/kesey.htm |url-status=usurped |archive-date=March 18, 2005 |title=Ken Kesey Kisses No Ass|date=July 23, 2019}} ''[[Esquire Magazine]]'' (September 1992).</ref> Married until his death, they had three children: Jed, Zane and Shannon.<ref>"Ken Kesey, Author of 'Cuckoo's Nest', Who Defined the Psychedelic Era, Dies at 66", ''[[The New York Times]]'' (November 11, 2001).</ref> Additionally, with Faye's approval, Kesey fathered a daughter, Sunshine Kesey, with fellow [[Merry Pranksters|Merry Prankster]] [[Carolyn Garcia|Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Adams]]. Born in 1966, Sunshine was raised by Adams and her stepfather, [[Jerry Garcia]].<ref name="intrepmemorial">{{cite web |url=http://www.intrepidtrips.com/kesey/index.html |title=Kesey's friends gather in tribute |first=Cynthia |last=Robins |date=December 7, 2001 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061208103351/http://www.intrepidtrips.com/kesey/index.html |archive-date=December 8, 2006}}</ref>

Kesey had a football scholarship for his first year, but switched to the University of Oregon wrestling team as a better fit for his build. After posting a .885 winning percentage in the 1956–57 season, he received the Fred Low Scholarship for outstanding Northwest wrestler. In 1957, Kesey was second in his weight class at the Pacific Coast intercollegiate competition.<ref name="NYTobit" /><ref name="Christensen">{{cite book |title=Acid Christ : Ken Kesey, LSD, and the politics of ecstasy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IEpIVbgz5JsC&q=%22Fred+Lowe+Scholarship%22&pg=PA40 |first=Mark |last=Christensen |location=Tucson, AZ |publisher=Schaffner Press |oclc=701720769 |isbn=978-1-936182-10-7 |page=40 |date=2010 |access-date=December 14, 2014}}</ref><ref name="SpokesmanReviewobit" /> He remains in the top 10 of Oregon Wrestling's all-time winning percentage.<ref name="saveoregonwrestling">{{cite web |title=Top Wrestlers |url=http://www.saveoregonwrestling.org/wrestlers.html |access-date=December 14, 2014 |publisher=Save Oregon Wrestling Foundation |location=Eugene, OR |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141214235225/http://www.saveoregonwrestling.org/wrestlers.html |archive-date=December 14, 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="goducks">{{cite web |url=http://www.goducks.com/pdf3/99425.pdf |date=December 3, 2007 |title=2006–07 Stats, History, Opponent Info – University of Oregon Wrestling |publisher=[[Oregon Ducks|University of Oregon Athletic Department]] |access-date=December 14, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141215001804/http://www.goducks.com/pdf3/99425.pdf |archive-date=December 15, 2014}}</ref>

A member of [[Beta Theta Pi]] throughout his studies, Kesey graduated from the University of Oregon with a [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] in speech and communication in 1957. Increasingly disengaged by the playwriting and screenwriting courses that comprised much of his major, he began to take literature classes in the second half of his collegiate career with James B. Hall, a cosmopolitan alumnus of the [[Iowa Writers' Workshop]] who had previously taught at [[Cornell University]] and later served as provost of College V at the [[University of California, Santa Cruz]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=JhXmEYWHDHYC&q=james+b.+hall+university+of+oregon&pg=PA138 "Hall, James B(yron)"], ''International Who's Who in Poetry'', 2004, p. 138.</ref> Hall took on Kesey as his protégé and cultivated his interest in literary fiction, introducing Kesey (whose reading interests were hitherto confined to [[science fiction]]) to the works of [[Ernest Hemingway]] and other paragons of [[literary modernism]].<ref>Jeff Baker, [http://blog.oregonlive.com/books/2008/05/james_b_hall_writer_teacher.html "James B. Hall: Writer, teacher"], ''The Oregonian/OregonLive'', May 14, 2008.</ref> After the last of several brief summer sojourns as a struggling actor in [[Los Angeles]], Kesey published his first short story ("First Sunday of September") in the ''Northwest Review'' and successfully applied to the highly selective [[Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation|Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship]] for the 1958–59 academic year.

Unbeknownst to Kesey, who applied at Hall's request, the maverick literary critic [[Leslie Fiedler]] (then based at the [[University of Montana]]) successfully importuned the regional fellowship committee to select the "rough-hewn" Kesey alongside more traditional fellows from [[Reed College]] and other elite institutions.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/toogoodtobetruel00winc_0 |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/toogoodtobetruel00winc_0/page/186 186] |quote=ken kesey woodrow wilson. |title=Too Good to Be True |publisher=University of Missouri Press |access-date=December 14, 2014 |isbn=978-0-8262-6277-6 |last1=Winchell |first1=Mark Royden |year=2002}}</ref> Because he lacked the prerequisites to work toward a traditional master's degree in English as a communications major, Kesey elected to enroll in the non-degree program at [[Stanford University]]'s Creative Writing Center that fall. While studying and working in the Stanford milieu over the next five years, most of them spent as a resident of Perry Lane (a historically bohemian enclave next to the university golf course), he developed intimate lifelong friendships with fellow writers [[Ken Babbs]], [[Larry McMurtry]], [[Wendell Berry]], [[Ed McClanahan]], [[Gurney Norman]] and [[Robert Stone (novelist)|Robert Stone]].<ref name="oregonianobit" />

During his initial fellowship year, Kesey frequently clashed with center director [[Wallace Stegner]], who regarded him as "a sort of highly talented illiterate" and rejected Kesey's application for a departmental [[Stegner Fellowship]] before permitting his attendance as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. Reinforcing these perceptions, Stegner's deputy [[Richard Scowcroft]] later recalled that "neither Wally nor I thought he had a particularly important talent."<ref name="books.google.com">Philip L. Fradkin, [https://books.google.com/books?id=pVD89rfGvQYC&q=%22stegner%22+%22kesey%22+%22pay%22&pg=PA131 ''Wallace Stegner and the American West'']</ref> According to Stone, Stegner "saw Kesey... as a threat to civilization and intellectualism and sobriety" and continued to reject Kesey's Stegner Fellowship applications for the 1959–60 and 1960–61 terms.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jrebNwURn28C&q=applied&pg=PA251 |title=Wallace Stegner |access-date=December 14, 2014 |isbn=978-0-8032-2537-4 |last1=Benson |first1=Jackson J. |year=2009|publisher=U of Nebraska Press }}</ref>

Nevertheless, Kesey received the prestigious $2,000 Harper-Saxton Prize for his first novel in progress (the oft-rejected ''Zoo'') and audited the graduate writing seminar—a courtesy nominally accorded to former Stegner Fellows, although Kesey only secured his place by falsely claiming to Scowcroft that his colleague (on sabbatical through 1960) "had said that he could attend classes for free"—through the 1960–61 term.<ref name="books.google.com" /> The course was initially taught that year by [[Viking Press]] editorial consultant and [[Lost Generation]] ''eminence grise'' [[Malcolm Cowley]], who was "always glad to see" Kesey and fellow auditor [[Tillie Olsen]]. Cowley was succeeded the following quarter by the Irish short-story specialist [[Frank O'Connor]]; frequent spats between O'Connor and Kesey ultimately precipitated his departure from the class.<ref>Cowley, M. (1976). [https://www.proquest.com/docview/1299909780 "Ken Kesey at Stanford"], ''Northwest Review'', 16(1), 1.</ref> While under Cowley's tutelage, he began to draft and workshop a manuscript that evolved into ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)|One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]''.

Reflecting upon this period in a 1999 interview with [[Robert K. Elder]], Kesey recalled, "I was too young to be a [[beatnik]], and too old to be a hippie."<ref name="salon2001">{{cite web |title=Down on the peacock farm |url=http://archive.salon.com/people/feature/2001/11/16/kesey99/index1.html |year=2001 |work=[[Salon Magazine]] |access-date=June 12, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201235830/http://archive.salon.com/people/feature/2001/11/16/kesey99/index1.html |archive-date=December 1, 2008}}</ref>

=== Experimentation with psychedelic drugs ===
At the invitation of Perry Lane neighbor and Stanford psychology graduate student Vic Lovell, Kesey was tricked into volunteering to take part in what turned out to be a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]-financed study under the aegis of [[Project MKULTRA]], a highly secret military program, at the [[Menlo Park, California|Menlo Park]] Veterans' Hospital,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.paloalto.va.gov/locations/menlopark.asp |title=Menlo Park Division – VA Palo Alto Health Care System |author=VA Palo Alto Health Care System |work=va.gov |access-date=December 14, 2014}}</ref> where he worked as a night aide.<ref>Reilly, Edward C. "Ken Kesey". Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Second Revised Edition (2000): EBSCO. Web. Nov 10. 2010.</ref> The project studied the effects of [[Psychedelics, dissociatives, and deliriants|psychedelic drugs]], particularly [[LSD]], [[psilocybin]], [[mescaline]], [[cocaine]], [[alpha-methyltryptamine|aMT]], and [[Dimethyltryptamine|DMT]].<ref name="oregonianobit">{{cite news |title=All times a great artist, Ken Kesey is dead at age 66 |last=Baker |first=Jeff |date=November 11, 2001 |work=The Oregonian |page=A1}}</ref> Kesey wrote many detailed accounts of his experiences with these drugs, both during the study and in the years of private drug use that followed.{{Citation needed|date= February 2018}}

Kesey's role as a medical guinea pig, as well as his stint working at the [[VA Palo Alto Health Care System|Veterans' Administration hospital]], inspired ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest''. The book's success, as well as the demolition of the Perry Lane cabins in August 1963, allowed him to move to a log house in [[La Honda, California]], a rustic hamlet in the [[Santa Cruz Mountains]] 15 miles southwest of Stanford University.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Perry+Avenue,+West+Menlo+Park,+CA&daddr=7940+La+Honda+Rd,+La+Honda,+CA |title=Perry Ave, West Menlo Park, CA 94025 to 7940 La Honda Rd, La Honda, CA 94020 – Google Maps |publisher=Google Maps |access-date=December 14, 2014}}</ref> He frequently entertained friends and many others with parties he called "[[Acid Tests]]", involving music (including Kesey's favorite band, the [[Grateful Dead]]), [[black lights]], fluorescent paint, [[strobe lights]], LSD, and other [[psychedelia|psychedelic]] effects. These parties were described in some of [[Allen Ginsberg]]'s poems and served as the basis for [[Tom Wolfe]]'s ''[[The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]]'', an early exemplar of the [[nonfiction novel]].<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2014/may/02/tom-wolfe-electric-kool-aid-acid-test |title=Acid adventures – review of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test: From the archive, 2 May 1969 |last=Reynolds |first=Stanley |date=May 2, 2014 |work=The Guardian |access-date=September 11, 2017 |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Alexandra |first1=Rae |title=A Wild Monkey Chase: Do Ken Kesey's LSD-Dosed Apes Still Roam La Honda? |date=September 22, 2020 |url=https://www.kqed.org/arts/13886018/a-wild-monkey-chase-do-ken-keseys-lsd-dosed-apes-still-roam-la-honda |publisher=KQED |access-date=September 30, 2020}}</ref> Other firsthand accounts of the Acid Tests appear in ''Living with the Dead'' by [[Rock Scully]] and David Dalton, ''[[Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs]]'' by [[Hunter S. Thompson]] and the 1967 [[Hells Angels]] memoir ''Freewheelin Frank: Secretary of the Angels'' (Frank Reynolds; ghostwritten by [[Michael McClure]]).{{Citation needed|date=September 2017}}

=== ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' ===
While enrolled at the University of Oregon in 1957, Kesey wrote ''End of Autumn''; according to Rick Dogson, the novel "focused on the exploitation of college athletes by telling the tale of a football lineman who was having second thoughts about the game".<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/itsallkindofmagi0000dodg |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/itsallkindofmagi0000dodg/page/66 66] |quote=end of autumn kesey. |title=It's All a Kind of Magic: The Young Ken Kesey |first=Rick |last=Dodgson |date=2013 |publisher=University of Wisconsin Pres |access-date=March 6, 2017 |via=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-299-29513-4}}</ref> Kesey came to regard the unpublished work as juvenilia, but an excerpt served as his Stanford Creative Writing Center application sample.<ref name="ReferenceA" />

During his Woodrow Wilson Fellowship year, Kesey wrote ''Zoo'', a novel about beatniks living in the [[North Beach, San Francisco, California|North Beach]] community of [[San Francisco]], but it was never published.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/11/nyregion/ken-kesey-author-of-cuckoo-s-nest-who-defined-the-psychedelic-era-dies-at-66.html |title=Ken Kesey, Author of 'Cuckoo's Nest,' Who Defined the Psychedelic Era, Dies at 66 |last=Lehmann-Haupt |first=Christopher |date=November 11, 2001 |work=The New York Times |access-date=June 10, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=It's All A Kind of Magic: The Young Ken Kesey |last=Dodgson |first=Rick |publisher=The University of Wisconsin Press |year=2013 |location=Madison |page=xv}}</ref>

The inspiration for ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)|One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]'' came while Kesey was working the night shift with [[Gordon Lish]] at the [[Menlo Park, California|Menlo Park]] Veterans' Hospital. There, Kesey often spent time talking to the patients, sometimes under the influence of the hallucinogenic drugs he had volunteered to experiment with. He did not believe these patients were insane, but rather that society had pushed them out because they did not fit conventional ideas of how people were supposed to act and behave. Published under Cowley's guidance in 1962, the novel was an immediate success; in 1963, it was adapted into a successful [[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (play)|stage play]] by [[Dale Wasserman]], and in 1975, [[Miloš Forman]] directed a [[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film)|screen adaptation]], which won the "Big Five" Academy Awards: [[Academy Award for Best Picture|Best Picture]], [[Academy Award for Best Actor|Best Actor]] ([[Jack Nicholson]]), [[Academy Award for Best Actress|Best Actress]] ([[Louise Fletcher]]), [[Academy Award for Best Director|Best Director]] (Forman) and [[Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay|Best Adapted Screenplay]] (Lawrence Hauben and [[Bo Goldman]]).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1976 |title=The 48th Academy Awards – 1976 |website=Oscars.org – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|date=October 4, 2014 }}</ref>

Kesey originally was involved in the film, but left two weeks into production. He claimed never to have seen the movie because of a dispute over the $20,000 he was initially paid for the film rights. Kesey loathed that, unlike the book, the film was not narrated by Chief Bromden, and he disagreed with [[Jack Nicholson]]'s casting as Randle McMurphy (he wanted [[Gene Hackman]]). Despite this, Faye Kesey has said that her husband was generally supportive of the film and pleased that it was made.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://mentalfloss.com/article/31001/11-authors-who-hated-movie-versions-their-books |title=11 Authors Who Hated the Movie Versions of Their Books |work=Mental Floss |access-date=December 14, 2014}}</ref>

=== Merry Pranksters ===
{{Main|Merry Pranksters}}
When the 1964 publication of his second novel, ''[[Sometimes a Great Notion (novel)|Sometimes a Great Notion]]'', required his presence in New York, Kesey, [[Neal Cassady]], and others in a group of friends they called the Merry Pranksters took a cross-country trip in [[Furthur (bus)|a school bus nicknamed ''Furthur'']].<ref name="si">{{cite web |url=http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1275835 |title=National Museum of American History Collections: Signboard, Pass the Acid Test |publisher=americanhistory.si.edu |access-date=April 8, 2015}}</ref> This trip, described in Tom Wolfe's ''[[The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test]]'' (and later in Kesey's unproduced screenplay, ''The Furthur Inquiry''), was the group's attempt to create art out of everyday life and to experience roadway America while high on LSD.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oac.cdlib.org/search?style=oac4;titlesAZ=k;idT=170301 |title=Ken Kesey Merry Pranksters collection, (bulk 1964–1969). |website=oac.cdlib.org}}</ref> In an interview after arriving in New York, Kesey said, "The sense of communication in this country has damn near atrophied. But we found as we went along it got easier to make contact with people. If people could just understand it is possible to be different without being a threat."<ref name="NYTobit" /> A huge amount of footage was filmed on [[16 mm film]] during the trip, which remained largely unseen until the release of [[Alex Gibney]] and [[Alison Elwood]]'s 2011 film ''[[Magic Trip]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |title='Magic Trip': High Times With The Merry Pranksters |url=https://www.npr.org/2011/08/05/138902712/magic-trip-high-times-with-the-merry-pranksters |access-date=2021-08-20 |website=NPR |date=2011-08-04 |language=en |last1=Jenkins |first1=Mark }}</ref>

After the bus trip, the Pranksters threw parties they called Acid Tests around the San Francisco Bay Area from 1965 to 1966. Many of the Pranksters lived at Kesey's residence in La Honda. In New York, Cassady introduced Kesey to [[Jack Kerouac]] and [[Allen Ginsberg]], who turned them on to [[Timothy Leary]]. ''[[Sometimes a Great Notion (film)|Sometimes a Great Notion]]'' inspired a 1970 film starring and directed by [[Paul Newman]]; it was nominated for two [[Academy Awards]], and in 1972 was the first film shown by the new television network [[Home Box Office|HBO]],<ref>{{cite news |last=Walker |first=Tim |date=2012-11-18 |title=HBO celebrates forty years of sex, violence and... Fraggles |work=[[The Independent]] |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/hbo-celebrates-forty-years-of-sex-violence-and-fraggles-8327215.html |access-date=2018-03-27 }}</ref> in [[Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania]].<ref>{{cite news |date=November 3, 2013 |title=Local History: NEPA put HBO on the dial |work=[[The Scranton Times-Tribune]] |url=http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/local-history-nepa-put-hbo-on-the-dial-1.1579237 |access-date=March 27, 2018}}</ref>

In 1965, Kesey was arrested in La Honda for [[cannabis (drug)|marijuana]] possession. In an attempt to mislead police, he faked suicide by having friends leave his truck on a cliffside road near [[Eureka, California|Eureka]], along with an elaborate suicide note written by the Pranksters. Kesey fled to Mexico in the back of a friend's car. He returned to the U.S. eight months later. On January 17, 1966, Kesey was sentenced to six months at the San Mateo County jail in [[Redwood City]], California.<ref>[http://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/1-000-arrested-protesting-Iraq-war-1991-6758662.php 1,000 arrested protesting Iraq war], ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'', Johnny Miller, January 16, 2016.</ref> Two nights later, he was arrested again, this time with Carolyn Adams, while smoking marijuana on the rooftop of [[Stewart Brand]]'s [[Telegraph Hill, San Francisco|Telegraph Hill]] home in San Francisco.<ref name="ergaiba">{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=wuVVAAAAIBAJ&pg=6787%2C4255835 |work=Eugene Register-Guard |location=(Oregon) |agency=Associated Press |title=Ken Kesey, novelist, arrested in Bay Area |date=October 21, 1966 |page=3A}}</ref><ref>[https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/from-eternity-to-here-19760226 From eternity to here], ''[[Rolling Stone (magazine)|Rolling Stone]]'', Charles Perry, February 26, 1976. Retrieved January 16, 2016.</ref> On his release, he moved back to the family farm in [[Pleasant Hill, Oregon]], in the [[Willamette Valley]], where he spent the rest of his life.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/11/nyregion/ken-kesey-author-of-cuckoo-s-nest-who-defined-the-psychedelic-era-dies-at-66.html |work=The New York Times |title=Ken Kesey, Author of 'Cuckoo's Nest,' Who Defined the Psychedelic Era, Dies at 66 |first=Christopher |last=Lehmann-Haupt |date=November 11, 2001}}</ref> He wrote many articles, books (mostly collections of his articles), and short stories during that time.

=== Death of son ===
On January 23, 1984, Kesey's 20-year-old son Jed, a wrestler for the [[Oregon Ducks|University of Oregon]], suffered severe head injuries on the way to [[Pullman, Washington]], when the team's loaned van crashed after sliding off an icy highway.<ref name=uowvc>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=16xjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lOEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6275%2C4576554 |work=Eugene Register-Guard |location=(Oregon) |title=UO wrestlers' van crashes, kills one |date=January 22, 1984 |page=1A}}</ref><ref name=scwds>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=2axjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lOEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2150%2C4980200 |work=Eugene Register-Guard |location=(Oregon) |title=Second UO wrestler dies |date=January 24, 1984 |page=1A}}</ref><ref name="SpokesmanReviewobit">{{cite news |newspaper=Spokesman-Review |date=January 24, 1984 |title=Crash takes second life |quote=Writer's son, Oregon wrestler Jed Kesey, dies of injuries |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19840124&id=pVdWAAAAIBAJ&pg=2572,4202199 <!--|volume=101st Year |issue=251--> |page=A6 <!----> |location=(Spokane, Washington) <!--|access-date=December 14, 2014-->}}</ref> Two days later at [[MultiCare Deaconess Hospital|Deaconess Hospital]] in [[Spokane, Washington|Spokane]], he was declared brain dead and his parents gave permission for his organs to be donated.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/09/what-world.html |title=Letters of Note: What a world |work=lettersofnote.com |access-date=December 14, 2014 |archive-date=January 6, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150106174940/http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/09/what-world.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=schmeltz>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xFdWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8O4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6228%2C3818171 |work=Spokesman-Review |location=(Spokane, Washington) |last=Schmeltzer |first=Michael |title=Kesey: An author and activist father |date=March 7, 1984 |page=17}}</ref>

Jed's death deeply affected Kesey, who later called Jed a victim of policies that had starved the team of funding. He wrote to Senator [[Mark Hatfield]]: {{Blockquote|text=And I began to get mad, Senator. I had finally found where the blame must be laid: that the money we are spending for national defense is not defending us from the villains real and near, the awful villains of ignorance, and cancer, and heart disease and highway death. How many school buses could be outfitted with seatbelts with the money spent for one of those 16-inch shells?<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wholeearth.com/issue/2042/article/419/remembering.jed.kesey |title=Remembering Jed Kesey |last=Kesey |first=Ken |date=1984 |website=Whole Earth Catalogue |publisher=Co-Evolutionary Quarterly |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150918180554/http://www.wholeearth.com/issue/2042/article/419/remembering.jed.kesey|archivedate=18 Sep 2015}}</ref>}}

At a Grateful Dead concert soon after the death of promoter [[Bill Graham (promoter)|Bill Graham]], Kesey delivered a eulogy, mentioning that Graham had donated $1,000 toward a memorial to Jed atop [[Mount Pisgah (Lane County, Oregon)|Mount Pisgah]], near the Kesey home in [[Pleasant Hill, Oregon|Pleasant Hill.]]<ref>{{Citation |last=Grateful Dead |title=Grateful Dead Live at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on 1991-10-31 |date=October 31, 1991 |url=https://archive.org/details/gd91-10-31.sbd.gardner.2897.sbeok.shnf |access-date=July 16, 2017}}. Track 13, starting at about :35.</ref> In 1988, Kesey donated $33,395 toward the purchase of a proper bus for the school's wrestling team<!-- to replace the loaned van that fell off a cliff-->.<ref name=kdbfw>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=F-hVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=p-EDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3495%2C5165972 |work=Eugene Register-Guard |location=(Oregon) |last=Mortenson |first=Eric |title=Keseys donate bus for UO wrestlers |date=February 24, 1988 |page=1B}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1356&dat=19880225&id=D7hPAAAAIBAJ&pg=2381,6211590 |work=Ocala Star-Banner |location=(Florida) |title=Kesey donates bus to son's university |date=February 25, 1988 |page=2A}}</ref>

=== Final years ===
Kesey was diagnosed with [[diabetes]] in 1992. In 1994, he toured with members of the Merry Pranksters, performing a musical play he wrote about the millennium called ''Twister: A Ritual Reality''. Many old and new friends and family showed up to support the Pranksters on this tour, which took them from Seattle's [[Bumbershoot]] all along the West Coast, including a sold-out two-night run at [[The Fillmore]] in [[San Francisco, California|San Francisco]] to [[Boulder, Colorado]], where they coaxed the Beat Generation poet [[Allen Ginsberg]] into performing with them.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Leighton |first=Ken |date=July 8, 1994 |title=Merry pranksters Jambay trip back to San Diego beach |pages=62 |work=The Californian |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57545363/merry-pranksters-jambay-trip-back-to/ |access-date=August 17, 2020 |quote=On Sunday "Twister" played in Boulder, Colorado. The night was especially groovy for proto-and neo-hippys, as Allan Ginsberg celebrated his 70th birthday by appearing in the play with Kesey, the Pranksters and Jambay.}}</ref>

Kesey mainly kept to his home life in [[Pleasant Hill, Oregon|Pleasant Hill]], preferring to make artistic contributions on the Internet<ref>{{Cite web |date=May 15, 2001 |title=Intrepid Trips |url=http://intrepidtrips.com/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010515234032/http://intrepidtrips.com:80/ |archive-date=May 15, 2001 |access-date=August 17, 2020 |website=intrepidtrips.com}}</ref> or holding ritualistic revivals in the spirit of the Acid Test. In the Grateful Dead DVD ''The Closing of Winterland'' (2003) documenting the New Year's 1978/1979 concert at the [[Winterland]] Arena in San Francisco, Kesey is featured in a between-set interview.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.shoutfactory.com/product/the-closing-of-winterland?product_id=2227 |title=The Closing Of Winterland |format=DVD |website=Shout! Factory |access-date=January 30, 2018}}</ref>

On August 14, 1997, Kesey and his Pranksters attended a [[Phish]] concert in [[Six Flags Darien Lake|Darien Lake]], New York. Kesey and the Pranksters appeared onstage with the band and performed a dance-trance-jam session involving several characters from ''The Wizard of Oz'' and ''Frankenstein''.<ref>{{cite web |title=August 1997 |url=http://phish.com/band/august-1997/ |website=Phish.com |publisher=Phish |access-date=November 4, 2016}}</ref>

In June 2001, Kesey was the keynote speaker at [[The Evergreen State College]]'s commencement ceremony.<ref>{{Citation |last=JC Haywire |title=Ken Kesey Commencement Address, The Evergreen State College |date=December 2, 2012 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw_2fJH9GNA | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/gw_2fJH9GNA| archive-date=2021-12-11 | url-status=live|access-date=July 16, 2017}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://archives.evergreen.edu/1972/1972-04/CommencementHome.html |title=Evergreen State College Archives: Student Affairs: Enrollment Services: Commencement Exercise : Commencement Speeches 1972– |website=archives.evergreen.edu |access-date=July 16, 2017}}</ref> His last major work was an essay for ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine calling for peace in the aftermath of the [[September 11 attacks]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Ken Kesey On Misconceptions Of Counterculture |date=August 12, 2011 |publisher=[[NPR]] |url=https://www.npr.org/2011/08/12/139259106/ken-kesey-on-misconceptions-of-counterculture |access-date=August 4, 2017}}</ref>

=== Death ===
In 1997, health problems began to weaken Kesey, starting with a [[stroke]] that year.<ref name="oregonianobit" /> On October 25, 2001, Kesey had surgery at [[PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center University District|Sacred Heart Medical Center]] in Eugene on his liver to remove a [[hepatocellular carcinoma|tumor]]; he did not recover<!-- from that operation--> and died of complications several weeks later on November 10<!--, 2001,--> at age 66. After a public service in Eugene, his body was brought back to his farm and buried next to his son Jed.<ref name="NYTobit" /><ref name="oregonianobit" /><ref name=orlsleg/>

=== Legacy ===
The film ''[[Gerry (2002 film)|Gerry]]'' (2002) is dedicated to Kesey.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302674/crazycredits/ |title=Gerry (2002) |publisher=IMDb}}</ref>

[[Kesey Square]] is in downtown [[Eugene, Oregon]].