Ken Elton Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado on 17 September 1935, to Fred and Geneva Kesey, who were committed Baptists and dairy farmers. During the Second World War he moved with his family to Springfield, Oregon and there spent many years on the family farm reading the Bible and listening to stories on his grandmother's knee, developing a deep appreciation for homespun yarns, many of them about Kesey's forebears who had migrated from Tennessee and Arkansas to Texas and New Mexico, then Colorado and finally Oregon. For light reading he turned to Zane Grey, Edgar Rice Burroughs, comic books, and some science fiction. In high school, and later in undergraduate school, Kesey was a champion wrestler and set State records that remain unbroken to this day.
After high school, on 20 May
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Citation: Huffman, Bennett. "Ken Kesey". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 May 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4941, accessed 24 November 2024.]
