BY OLLIE REED JR. / JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
Albuquerque Academy junior Melinda Modisette was watching the movie “The Fellowship of the Ring,” based on the first volume of the epic fantasy trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, when she was struck by an exchange between heroic hobbit Frodo Baggins and the wizard Gandalf.
As written by Tolkien in the second chapter of “Fellowship,” it goes as follows.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
It was like a trumpet call to arms for the 17-year-old Modisette, who had been despondent since an injury a few months back cost her a place on Academy’s girls wrestling team and who’d been lost since the COVID-19 pandemic derailed her school routine.
