Caden Strampe did not hesitate for a moment when asked what some of his favorite words were.

“Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,” said the Ellis Middle School eighth grader with a grin, adding it is a type of black lung disease.

Now, in case you might be worried about the type of words middle schoolers are expected to spell these days, that word is not one of them.

It’s just the way it is with these middle school wordsmiths – they just get a kick out of words.

Caden joins two other spellers from this area in the Southeastern Minnesota Spelling Bee finals today in Rochester; the winner heads to Scripps National Spelling Bee this spring in Washington, DC.

Others who will compete today are Neha Thawani Nanda, a seventh grader from Pacelli Middle School, the daughter of Sanjeev Nanda and Anu Thawani; and Ava Rech, 12, a seventh grader from Grand Meadow, daughter of Gary and Jessica Rech.

The trio has been studying word lists for weeks, they each said on Monday.

“I study them at least two hours a day,” said Neha, 13, adding she studies after school until supper, and then once she gets homework out of the way, she hits the lists again.

“I have made it to (spelling bee) regions multiple times,” she said, “but never this far.”

She said she first heard of spelling and geography bees when in the third grade. “So when I got to fourth grade, I jumped in … it really interested me.”

Her winning word to allow her to advance this year was “eulogy.”

“My parents were a little shocked” when she found she was advancing to the finals, she said with a grin. “But they said they were proud of me.”

Ava has also “made it to districts, but never this far before,” she said. She couldn’t quite recall her winning word at regions, but that perhaps was because she is concentrating so hard on the next contest.

“I’ve been studying the word lists” pretty heavily, she said. “I also like to read a lot,” she said, not a bad pastime for someone competing in spelling bees. She is also a member of her school’s Knowledge Bowl team.

Caden said he slipped on one word during the region finals  — “piazza” — but was lucky to find his opponent tripping up on his word, too (chimichanga). That gave Caden another shot at the top spot.

Caden’s winning word was “thesaurus.”

“I thought that was kind of ironic,” he said with a laugh, since a thesaurus is used to find synonyms and other information about words.

He said his mother gave him the business about missing the word, “piazza.”

“But I made up for it,” he said, referring to his regional win. “I was glad.”