“Night of Stars” honorees got more than scholarships and a good meal this week.

The Port Arthur top-10 ranked high school seniors, whose earned academic successes were celebrated by the Port Arthur Education Foundation, got an extra helping of life advice from a young man who has earned a handful of academic degrees while paying “real world tuition” since graduating Port Arthur Memorial High School.

Fred Vernon, the 2018 Entrepreneur of the Year in Port Arthur, has lived several lifetimes in the last decade, earning welding credentials and qualifying to drive big rigs. He’s also earned a two-year degree, a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees in building a transportation company that is doing some $6 million in annual business.

Vernon told the seniors that, at their age, he learned his parents’ home was facing mortgage foreclosure. That message was delivered by a notice on the family home’s door, which he found after school.

That affected his college decisions. But by moxie and hard work, he used short-term training and late-night studies to earn money for college — he was, at turns, a welder at a plant and a prison guard, among other jobs — and helped his family weather their economic hardships.

He also took the wise counsel of professors and mentors who encouraged him to keep learning and to pursue his professional passions. “Education is the fuel to your future,” he told the “Stars,” who all revealed their own college plans for next year.

Such education, Vernon said, can be formal or informal. It can come in a classroom or it can be gathered by way of seeking advice. It can be bolstered by returning to principles your parents instilled in you and by fostering one’s religious faith.

“God sustained me,” said Vernon, who in his 20s met with both soaring professional achievements and with business failure.

“I persisted,” he said.

Those are lessons that these Port Arthur academic “Stars” and their classmates need to embrace. Like Vernon, they may encounter unexpected challenges. They may need to take academic and career detours. They may find that one dream may shrink while a better professional path presents itself. They may fail. But through it all, they must persist.

Vernon passed along this message, too: “If you work really hard, people will help you. People will invest in you.”

Port Arthur and environs is a generous community with generous people, many of them willing to lend advice and offer their resources to help hard-working people. If you work hard, someone will notice you.

This message, too, emerged from Vernon’s presentation: Much of the education he received came locally, in short-term training programs, at two-year schools, at Lamar University.

“Opportunity came,” he said.

When it did, he was ready.