Merry Prankster of the '60s, Sandy Lehmann-Haupt

CALLICOON CENTER, N.Y. — Sandy Lehmann-Haupt, 59, one of the 1960s Merry Pranksters and a principal source for the best-selling book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," died Oct. 29 of a heart attack at a hospital here near his home, his family told The New York Times.

At age 22, he rode aboard novelist Ken Kesey's psychedelic bus, which helped define the hippie generation.

Mr. Lehmann-Haupt, a sound engineer, met Kesey when the author visited New York for the opening of the stage version of his book "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

Mr. Lehmann-Haupt then moved into Kesey's home in Palo Alto, Calif., and experimented with LSD, then legal, with a group of Kesey's companions who became known as the Merry Pranksters.

In 1964, Kesey bought a school bus and Mr. Lehmann-Haupt installed its sound system and occasionally drove it.

Mr. Lehmann-Haupt later described his experiences on the Merry Pranksters' LSD-fueled bus trip across America to author Tom Wolfe, who immortalized the journey in his 1968 book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

Over the last decade, Mr. Lehmann-Haupt stopped using drugs, took a job as an advocate for the mentally ill, married and bought a house.