The first speller of this group was Dhyana Mishra, speller 116, a Florida eighth grader who spelled "neoprene" correctly. It's a synthetic rubber characterized by superior resistance to oils, gasoline, sunlight, ozone, and heat and by lower permeability to gases than natural rubber.
She previously tied for 42nd place last year and 46th place in 2016. Her sister Stuti was the 2012 runner up.