After making my annual trek to Effingham, Illinois, to attend the 2016 edition of Mid America Motorworks' Corvette Funfest, I saw something I don't often see at a Corvette show.

While Mike Yager and staff put on their usual excellent event, it wasn't their organizational skills that caught my attention. And no, I didn't stumble upon an earth-shattering '63 ZO6 recent barn find.

What I saw was a teenaged young man lovingly wiping down an '87 Corvette — his Corvette.

A passing shower left beads of rainwater on Hunter Reese's '87 Corvette coupe. Corvette enthusiasts who know the teenaged C4 owner will confirm the water was not on the car for long.

As a 19-year-old college freshman, Hunter Reese already talks about his "lifelong passion" for Corvettes, which began at age 5. His mother acquired the car about that time for herself, and it needed a complete restoration.

"Later," Hunter says, "I would come home from school or whatever and watch the car being taken apart and reassembled."

After it was restored, this mother/son team of Corvette aficionados took the car around the country, entering it in numerous shows and competitions.

"When I was only 6 or 7, my job at the shows was to examine each tire before the judging started and remove any rocks lodged in the tire treads," he remembers.

A young Hunter Reese poses with a trophy that he and his mom, Corvette owner Elizabeth Betsy Reese, won a few years ago with their maroon '87 coupe.

Hunter Reese at age 7 was already a Corvette enthusiast and, more importantly, a future Corvette owner. Here, one of his early jobs was to remove pebbles from the tire treads before the car was shown.

At every turn as he grew, Reese was exposed to and quickly absorbed age-appropriate "how to" information on the restoration and care of a Corvette.

Ten years after his mother bought the C4 they gave the moniker "No Name," Hunter's mother bought a second Corvette — a C5. A short time later, when Reese was old enough to get his learner's permit to drive, his mother presented him the keys to the maroon '87 Corvette.

Reese and his vehicle have migrated into occasional high-performance driving and Autocross events. He knows every nut and bolt on the car. It has an automatic transmission, but yes, Reese can negotiate the shift pattern of a four- or six-speed with no problem.

What's remarkable about this story, of course, is that while Corvette is well into its seventh generation with an eighth and its unknowns just around the corner, only a rare few of Reese's generation have shown the interest or knowledge he has in becoming a Corvette owner.

It's hardly a trade secret that GM, Chevrolet and Corvette have known for many years that they must continually try to broaden their appeal to a new and younger population of Corvette enthusiasts. That's a challenge because young people today did not experience "Corvette exhilaration" that a great majority of we current Corvette owners did while coming of age.

Reese has set his eyes on a degreed study program that he hopes will ease him into a possible career in automotive engineering. His ultimate goal is to someday join General Motors and then focus on Corvette's future — a future he expects will have his direct involvement.

"I've learned that it's not only about the car, but equally as much about the person behind the wheel of a car," he says. He also notes that he's been told more than a few times, "If you go to a car show only to win a trophy, you're going for the wrong reason."

Seems to me that Reese — and hopefully a few others out there just like him — is exactly what the Corvette hobby needs at this moment in the brand's history.

The smile comes easily to Hunter Reese when an admirer asks him about the Corvette he's owned for three years. His "lifelong passion for Corvettes," he says, dates back to a time when he was only 6 years old.