Here's a look at some of the stories that made news in Houston 30 years ago this month.

* Hiring a singing stripper to perform in class for your high school teacher is usually never a good idea.

That's what Kingwood High School valedictorian Michael Woosley Jr., did as the school year came to a close. For that, Woosley was stripped of his valedictorian honors and suspended for six days. As such he wouldn't be giving a speech at commencement.

From Cathy Gordon's article on July 11, 1987.

"Their aim was not to suspend me for hiring the singing stripper, but to keep me and my speech away from graduation," Michael Woosley Jr., 18, who was barred from his June 2 graduation, said Friday.

But Humble Independent School District officials labeled Woosley's claims "total nonsense."

Woosley, stripped of valedictorian honors, said the speech stressed individuality - "not the usual you-are-the-future valedictory banter."

* When the fire chief doesn't think Houston City Hall is safe, you might want to pay attention.

That concern was made clear when a fire broke out in the building's 11th floor. No one was injured and damage was minimal.

Reporter Kim Cobb pointed out the lessons learned a year after the blaze.

But the small fire pointed out how disastrous a larger blaze could be for the building with a single stairwell, dead-end corridors and a design that would encourage the rapid spread of fire and smoke between floors.

Fire Marshall Eddie Corral finally had an audience who would listen when he said the building did not meet the current building code for fire safety.

It still doesn't.

"The bottom line is they're better off than they were a year ago," said Fire Chief Robert Clayton, who last year said he couldn't think of a downtown building more dangerous than City Hall. While waiting for corrections to the building itself, his firefighters have become very familiar with the layout through repeated training sessions.

And since the building's "stair-stepped" exterior makes reaching the upper floors nearly impossible from street level, the fire department is installing 50-foot ladders on the jutting roof of the building's fifth floor to be used to reach those upper floors.

"They're going to stay there, and certain truck companies will go up there and raise the ladders," in the event of a fire, Clayton said.

"Still, you haven't solved the main problem - that stairwell."

The single stairwell means only one exit in case of fire. Many city employees used the elevators to escape last year's fire, and they were already growing hot as the workers rode them down.

It's worth nothing that renovations in the 1990s corrected these issues.

* It might not have been the wedding of the century, but on June 20, 1987, Lake Jackson was the place to be for this matrimonial event. Actually, the Albertsons grocery store in Lake Jackson was the place to be.

Here's how reporter Vivienne Heines described it for the Chronicle:

She didn't really get jittery until she was standing in the frozen foods aisle, between the tubs of Blue Bell ice cream and the Nabisco cones and cups.

Gwyn Foyt, 20, wearing a lacy, low-cut white bridal gown, glanced at the customers peering around their partially filled grocery carts to get a better look at her, and she began to tremble. Foyt was about to marry 27-year-old Steve Glidden in the middle of Albertsons supermarket in Lake Jackson. She was about to say her wedding vows smack dab in the floral section of a large, temperature-regulate­d, well-lighted grocery store - in front of family, friends and a crowd of curious shoppers.

Store manager Dale Ramsey, looking like a proud papa about to give away the bride, smiled reassuringly at the anxious Foyt. The father of the bride, Syl D. Foyt, walked up to greet his daughter, kissed her lightly and lowered her veil.

The organ music - slightly muffled by the nearby potato bin - swelled. Foyt took a deep breath and, holding her father's arm, began her walk to the altar.

She proceeded with slow dignity past the Cokes, coffee, condiments and crackers, passing under dangling poster-size enlargements of the couple's engagement photo. She turned at the dairy section, bypassed the cheeses, yogurts and sour cream, and headed for the white trellis and blooming flowers under the "Plants and Flowers" sign.

She joined her husband-to-be and turned to face the minister, her brother, James Ross. Bridesmaids, clad in rose-colored, off-the- shoulder dresses, and the groomsmen, wearing black tuxedos with rose-colored cummerbunds and bow ties, took their places. The ceremony began.

Rose intoned solemnly, "When two devoted hearts are bound by the enchanted ties of matrimony..."

Grocery store sounds - the clatter of carts, the chatter of shoppers, the crying of a baby - drowned out much of the ceremony. One woman and her young daughter, craning their heads to better see and hear the action, rebuked two latecomers who tried to elbow their way to the front of the produce section.

"Move back, girls, we've been waiting here since 12 o'clock," she said sharply, guarding her front-row position jealously.

It might seem a long and strange journey for a young woman from Danbury and her Brazoria sweetheart to end up joining their lives in the midst of a big grocery store. The explanation is less tantalizing than the question, however.

The Albertsons wedding was the product of manager Ramsey's fertile imagination and love of publicity. He decided, he says, that June is a time for weddings - so why not have a wedding in his store?

"From my standpoint, it's a way to call attention to my store and, from her standpoint, it's a way of getting a very unique wedding," Ramsey said.