Hats off the 2013 Mississippi Scholars graduating class.

Community leaders and educators came together to honor more than 160 local graduating seniors this past week at a banquet at Easthaven Baptist Church. Along with accolades for their high achievements, the students also came away with scholarship money toward furthering their education.

This year represented the most scholarship money raised from private and local donors, said Kay Burton, local Chamber of Commerce program director and Mississippi Scholar volunteer.

The guest speaker was Mississippi State Treasurer Lynn Fitch, who talked with the graduates about the importance of making every moment count and being a positive encourager.

I love commencement speeches. I’ll be listening to yet another one this weekend as our daughter Kinsey graduates from the University of Alabama. These speeches can be very inspiring even to those of us not wearing a cap and gown. And since I know I’ll never figure out this crazy world in my short lifetime, I guess that makes me a life-long learner and eligible for annual commencements.

One of my favorite commencement speeches of all times was given by Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers, to the graduating class at Stanford University in 2005.

Jobs didn’t graduate from Stanford. In fact, he didn’t graduate from college at all. In his commencement address, Jobs touched on three areas of life that can make all the difference and uses his own life as an example.

The first of his suggestions is to follow your curiosity and intuition. He gave the example of how, having dropped out of his core college classes, he was intrigued by the art of calligraphy and took an elective class in that study.

Ten years later, when designing the Macintosh computer, he incorporated beautiful typography into the operating system. He says that had he not dropped in on that one class, the Mac likely would not have come with the multiple typefaces that made it the publishing industry standard that it remains today.

His second story is about love and loss. Jobs started Apple in his garage at age 20. By age 30 he found himself running a $20 billion company with more than 4,000 employees. Then he got fired.

He says he was devastated and thought about leaving Silicon Valley. But his passion kept him going. He says that that being fired at that time was the best thing that ever could have happened to him. It opened up a whole new world of creativity and opportunity.

And as fate might have it, through a series of Silicon Valley acquisitions Jobs ended up back at the helm of Apple to make it one of the most recognizable brands in the world, not to mention very profitable.

Jobs says the one thing that kept him in the loop and ultimately back at Apple was that he genuinely loved what he did. He says the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you don’t find it, Job’s advice is don’t settle, keep looking.

And finally his third and most valuable lesson is about the inevitability of death. Jobs says he lived the latter part of his first 50 years with the intellectual concept that every day could be his last. He said he would wake every morning and ask himself the question: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”

At age 50 he was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer and the intellectual concept became a reality. His advice: Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Sadly, Jobs lost his battle with cancer in 2011.

This is simply a paraphrase. I would encourage anyone, graduating or not, to take a few moments to search for and read the full text of Jobs’ commencement address. Whatever your opinions of him as a person or corporate leader, his words remain inspiring.

Good luck to the Mississippi Scholars graduates and all the upcoming graduates of 2013. Congratulations on a job well done.

Rick Reynolds is president/publisher of The Daily Leader. Contact him at rick.reynolds@dailyleader.com.