Last Go Round has an extensive cast of characters. Among them are the colorful Parson Montanic, "a warrior for Jesus"; a stentorian lady reporter; Cecil Kell, an upright rancher; the bone-crushing Frank Gotch; and a bevy of attractive cowgirls. However, three characters predominate: Johnathan Spain, Jackson Sundown, and George Fletcher.

Spain holds the double roles of narrator and protagonist. He is the nearly ninety-year-old who is shocked by the "gaunt stranger" he sees reflected in the mirror of the Let 'Er Buck Room, an old-timer alienated from the Wide World of Sports broadcasting equipment and fearful that his memories of the first Round Up are too dim to rekindle.

They are not, however, and so we meet through his reminiscences the teenaged youth he once was, who had the time of his life at the Pendleton Round Up.

Jackson Sundown and George Fletcher, "a couple of real old-time...