Never been to the Ozarks but big black cats turning up in places they "shouldn't" be is genuinely one of the more consistent mystery animal reports across the board. We get them constantly here in Scotland too - ABC reports (Alien Big Cats) have been a thing for decades and nobody in authority takes it seriously but theres just too many sightings to dismiss.
The frustrating thing is the explanation always defaults to "escaped exotic pet" which fair enough, sometimes that's probably true. But that doesn't account for a sustained population of sightings over years in the same region.
What did it look like size-wise, are we talking large dog or bigger? And was it moving in a way that looked cat-like, that fluid low shoulder movement is usually what separates a genuine big cat report from someone misidentifying something else. Details like that matter more than people think.