PASSAGES: Ricky to Get Kennedy Honor

By Stephen M. Silverman

Friday August 02, 2002 10:00 AM EDT

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NAMED: Ricky Martin, 29, heads the list of five winners of the 16th annual Hispanic Heritage Awards to be presented Sept. 20 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, reports the Associated Press. Other honorees include Mexican-American speed skater Derek Parra; "In the Time of the Butterflies" novelist Julia Alvarez; and PEOPLE en Espanol founder and publisher Liza Quiroz. NBC will broadcast the hour-long awards ceremony Oct. 12. ... SCRATCHED: Diana Ross, 58, who announced in late May that she was voluntarily entering a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center so she would be in shape to undertake a 14-date, 10-city summer concert tour, has canceled all her remaining dates one week into the tour, her spokeswoman told Reuters on Thursday. No reason for the cancellation was given, and her rep had no comment. ... SOUGHT: Reve Walsh, wife of "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh, 56, is seeking to end the marriage and gain custody of the couple's two children, reports the AP. Reve Walsh is seeking alimony, child support, exclusive use of the marital home, medical and other insurance, attorneys fees and costs, and equitable distribution of their assets, according to the petition, which was filed earlier this month at Florida's Indian River County Courthouse. She called her 31-year marriage irretrievably broken. Walsh, however, has asked the court to delay the divorce hearing until he and his wife can attend marriage counseling. Their son, Adam, then 6, was abducted in 1981, from a local Sears store. Adam's remains were found 14 days later, 120 miles away in a canal. His death led his parents to found the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 1984. As Walsh told PEOPLE about Adam's abduction: "People don't understand the devastation the murder of a child does to someone. Eighty percent of parents of murdered children wind up in divorce. The only thing you have in common is that horrible sadness. You can't see the joy of your previous life. Reve and I fought to stay together."