After three months of secret deliberations, the Senior Class Marshals yesterday announced that comedian Will Ferrell will address them on Class Day.

“That’s ridiculous,” said W. Cory Walker ’03, who said he had suggested Ferrell to the committee. “He’s the funniest Saturday Night Live guy ever. I’m stoked.”

Ferrell, who was a regular cast member on NBC’s Saturday Night Live from 1995 through 2002, rose to fame with his roles as President Bush and Craig the Spartan cheerleader as well as several popular comedies such as A Night at the Roxbury and Austin Powers.

He will now follow a long line of comedians who have been Class Day speakers, including Rodney Dangerfield in 1978, Conan O’Brien ’85 in 2001, and Al Franken ’73 last year, among others.

Continuing what appears to be a Senior Class Commitee tradition, Ferrell’s appearance was landed through a labyrinthine process that circumvented the actor’s publicist until Monday afternoon.

According to First Class Marshal Krishnan N. Subrahmanian ’03, contact with Ferrell was established via a friend of the committee, B. Aidan Flanagan ’03, who knew a Ferrell acquaintance.

“I don’t know who these people are,” Subrahmanian said. “We just got the connection.”

“Last year the connection was more direct,” Subrahmanian said, referring to Franken, who was secured through his daughter, currently a senior at Harvard. “This year, it was a little more extended.”

Ferrell’s Los Angeles publicist Matt Lebou said he did not have Subrahmanian’s contact information until he got it from a reporter Monday evening.

Up until that point, Lebou said he had heard of the June 4 event only in a brief conversation with his client.

Second Class Marshal L. Patrick Noonan ’03 said he was thrilled the Class of 2003 had landed Ferrell as a speaker.

“The man is a comedic genius," Noonan said. “He has been in a lot of classic movies, and should really uplift the senior class. He’s so hot right now.”

This year, marshals said they worked hard to maintain the secrecy of their decision process, after it was revealed last year that Franken was not on the committee’s original list of speaker choices.

Marshals said that the revelation was offensive to Franken and the information should not have been made public in the first place.

In his speech last year, Franken jokingly referred to a Crimson article listing the senior class’s first choices for speaker.